Nothing Is Gone Until We Let It Go

                               for Sejal Patel

Nothing is gone until we let it go—

   The inconvenient truth, the useful lie,

Hope’s cradle and the open grave of woe—

   Nothing is dead until we let it die.

My mother’s laugh, my father’s mystery,

   My friends above the earth, my friends below—

Each time I think of them, they live in me.

   Nothing is gone until I let it go.

The laws of physics say that, when I die,

   My body stops, but not my energy—

So all that I’ve lived for, lived with, lived by,

   Will be a part of all that is not me

      And hang over your life like mistletoe

      And never die until you let me go.

 

Copyright 2015 Matthew J Wells