22). If You Depart

modern poetry

If you depart
Requires conclusion.
Suspend awareness,
Replace it with something else;
Your contributions.

Why try so hard?
Store it away,
Together with his own,
His colleagues' output.

Very real work;
Exaggerate,
Perception,
Immersed in the moment.

On paper every year,
That is confidence for you.
Already true.
Changing visibility.

You know why?
Accomplished purpose;
Choice;
Always that person by then.
Talking and reading about him.


"If You Depart," poem twenty-two of "Lettersongs," unpublished work © 2008,
Lisa Page Weil.  All rights reserved.