goodbye season

when the starstruck dolphin's song fades
and smoke is washed away by cold water,
who will write the melodies
on damp paper with burnt edges?

not me.

​you?

​this is the goodbye season.

over windswept fields;
the snow is coming.
here we stand -
burying this one last time.

from orchards to rivers,
tops of ferris wheels,
bottoms of ancient buildings,
we didn't stop.

until now.

it's not all carnivals out here.
it's cold water and apologies.
​
insults hurled - so many words.
the right ones?

helping hands at either end of an hour.
never synchronized.
we made poor timekeepers.

let's do better,
these two deserve our best,
don't you agree?

let's keep counting on
those in our lives now.
those we really love.

because the dolphin is no longer singing,
the melodies were lost,
no one came to scrawl the songs.

and the smoke -
of course we left.
it's so hard to fight.

​a fire starts at the bottom
and time is up.

goodbye, season.

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