Goodbyes

 See Ya Later

I recall the lack of goodbyes 

on my Cancer Tour,

back before I learned

I had it in me as well

how much we laughed,

how little we cried.

There was the prostate in Sonoma,

and the pancreas in Napa, 

the brain in the East Bay, pretty bleak,

having inherited its doom

from the lungs and the liver.

There were friends attached 

to those afflicted organs,

friends of long standing, 

fifty years, more.

I don’t remember 

what we talked about.

Talking wasn’t the point, not really.

It was more being and having than doing.

I know that no one said goodbye,

not wanting it to be a final farewell.

I had thought I’d tell them all 

about when I died for awhile,

on that hillside in the jungle, far from home.

No one’s ever heard the whole of that.

But it wasn’t about me, so I didn’t.

Nobody knows what to say,

not really, at the moment 

of another’s loss.

We all try, come up dry

more so than not.

I don’t know if goodbye is valuable to say,

not as important as

thank you, 

I love you, 

my life is better because of you,

those you better say in person.

Before you can’t.