I Did Not Say Goodbye
Haibun & Poems
Any Note Press
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A Note Before
These pieces were not composed so much as arriving, set down in the order offered. The form is haibun, standing between a few short poems: the old practice of prose walking beside verse, here turned to an unfamiliar . It is an agony in the life it reports, while the hand can still hold the pen. They are not a literal exposition. Life does not operate within poetry’s requirements . Fictions surrounding a truth, remain fictions.
The title is the whole argument. I did not say goodbye — not to the body, not to the cures, not to the diagnosis, not to tomorrow. There was no ceremony because there was nothing to release. A field is excited here and subsides there, and the vacuum underneath keeps no ledger of which flower it was wearing.
I have kept the calendar of small seasons as my only measure. The self-heal — prunella, the heal-all — withers on schedule, and the iris is allotted its few days to stand in the same light. I have stopped reading these as omens. They are not instructions. They arrive, as four o’clock arrives, without my asking.
ALERT THE DISPLAY PAGE WONT HOLD MY TYPING AS TYPED NOT SURE WHY
WORKING TO FIX IT (it is a tuhat white space issue)
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Contents
I. hOMe sweet hOMe
II. Call Waiting
III. The Iris Takes the Field (haibun)
IV. The Cushion Is No Refuge
V. Steady Cadence
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I. hOMe sweet hOMe
hOMe sweet hOMe
AHoy, my bobbing houseboat
(splurtsssundboomps)
gull on rail
HUMiliates with ease
Lone aPHETic without me
legs wobble
(Burrupppp)
gut heaves
defying readiness
remains moored
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II. Call Waiting
Promised
pairing
We parted friends
Silent angers rumbled deep within
I caused the hurt
Politely
you did not accuse
Eyes
not so polite
Years’ distances gathered
Confirmed
pain for each
separate
I could not undo
the broken trust
I had lied to myself
not you
Dropping the dance card
I abandoned
adolescent courting
Watusi
I fumbled
mature embrace
Tango
Solitary
confinements deserved
uncertain steps
struggling
Walk
body endures infirmities
my adornments
ravaging
what remained
reveals a knowing
Knowing
you still care
What should I have said
then
Now
line cast to your shore
foreshadows call waiting
suspended
getting back to you
a distant goodbye
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III. The Iris Takes the Field
watered lawn, cheek-down —
from here the iris
taller than the house
This was NOT a Fall. If you had been there to see it, you would understand. A Fall is a technical term that would require a body survey. Finding in that survey what can be repaired.
This was much worse.
One might say I suffered a bad memory. Corrupted memory. False memory: what had been remembered was no longer true. My action was fully rational, based on the false premise. The body-habitus had unmoored from body-memory. Neither recognized the goodbye. I acted on the assumption of coherence. I knelt.
Here on the ground, exposed just as it is, was the body that had left me without goodbye. I could not get up. Unplanned interment—no final resting place, only a pause while Charon’s coin places a call.
On the calendar of small seasons the heal-all has finished its withering, and the iris is allotted its few days to stand. I notice I have stopped reading these as orientations.
The prunella does not die to teach me; the iris does not open to console. A field is excited here, subsides there, and the vacuum underneath keeps no ledger of which flower it was wearing. Immobilized flailing on watered lawn is not their path.
I have been learning to conserve that which I hold dear, without the catch of a man saying goodbye, some things just leave and are no longer possible. The memory does not replace what has been lost. My body made no attempt to say goodbye: it was not there.
I wrote the orders —
the lone noncompliant one
happens to be mine
So I will not say I have withered. I will only set down, the way one sets down a tool that has done its work, the things I had thought required a parting.
I did not say goodbye to healing. The heal-all withers on schedule; nothing it carried is owed back.
I did not say goodbye to the cures. There were interventional repairs and surgical removals and diagnostic scopes and scans and the medications compiled and consumed. Biding time for this.
I did not say goodbye to this body. The excitation subsides. The field keeps no grievance.
I did not say goodbye to usefulness. Self-heal, or health-giving — a name, not a tenure.
I did not say goodbye to the diagnosis. It was always a description, never an address.
I did not say goodbye to tomorrow. I only stopped lending it my arithmetic.
I did not say goodbye to the practice. Four o’clock arrives without my asking.
I did not say goodbye to arriving. The iris opens where the heal-all stood, and neither one needed me to say so.
It was not Asclepius, Dionysus, or Orpheus who rushed to my support, but three ordinary attendants. I was pulled from that ground. They did not grieve my loss. I was restored to the upright, once again respectable. Not a humiliation, but the weakness continuously hidden—a passage only delayed.
I had knelt with the memory of being able to get up. I was returned to the earth without ceremony.
withered heal-all —
the iris draws its blade
in the same light
attending my wake
yank me from the casket please
your grief does not help
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IV. The Cushion Is No Refuge
Listening to mired grievance
monologue memorized
Paths diverge without intention
no shared interests
Forgiveness by words only
repeating the offenses
Extended support expectations
indulging enabling
Harboring regrets
continued excuses
the cushion is no refuge
observe conduct
IF the gateless gate
finds no difference
the conduct is without-conduct
the cushion’s pretense abandoned
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V. Steady Cadence
Ground trembled
tantrum-quake
Desperate to support the other
Our words misfired
Breathless speech
fears that could not be spoken
Why did you do that?
(Can I stop wanting to help
To show I care
To show I am still capable.)
Why 911?
(It was not a fall
It was not that face plant
Of broken bones
lost consciousness
Pacemaker answered.)
Settling
later
in tears that could not match
a pacemaker’s steady cadence
synchronized—
cautioned agreement
I am not trying to leave
I want to act as if I am living.
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Colophon
The work is personal. The material here is original arising directly from my sitting contemplation. It is protected under Any Note Press. It’s publication here permits no commercial use. All rights are reserved. It is offered for the benefit of one’s practice and nothing else.