Farewell

 

the foreign ghost of it

lingers in sound;

 

the clock of a cathedral

chiming its two syllables

in the afternoon,

 

the staccato of heels

turning along a street

metallic in rain-washed stone,

 

the tremble of leaves

after the collared dove

has flown the lilac bush,

 

the settling of  pine boards

where my luggage sat

nebulae'd in lace

 

(the Bohemian air

 of Vuitton)

 

as I  prepared to leave

and meet you in New York.

___________________________________________________

This poem is all about the sound connotations of "farewell". The word ,itself, is syllabicly lyrical, and what lingers behind once the initial "Farewell" is initiated is the echo, the ghost of it that disperses into familiar things associate with the place and activity of the person who left. In this case, a woman leaving behind an old European city and going back to New York to meet someone, we assume a boyfriend or lover. The essences of her linger in the resonance of how she left and what happened before, and now what haunts afterward