23 Goodbye and farewell poems

Five more books in a box to be carried out to the car; your office door closes behind you and at that moment you turn invisible—not even a ghost in that hall from the hall’s point of view. If the halls don’t know you, the halls and the rooms of the buildings where you worked for seven years— if the halls don’t know you, and they don’t— some new woman or two new men come clattering down these halls in the month after your departure, indeed just two days after you left forever they come clattering with ideas about the relation between mind and body or will and fate filled with hormones of being the chosen workers here and they feel as if the halls and rooms begin to recognize them, accept them, as if there is a belonging in the world— but these new workers are wrong, the halls don’t know who is working under the unobtrusive fluorescent panels: this is appalling and for a minute you are appalled though your being so now is not an event in the life of your new rented house or even your new condominium . . . So if they don’t, if they don’t know you, the halls, the walls, the fixtures, then what? Then there is for you no home in that rock, no home in the mere rock of where you work, where you briskly walk, not even in the bed where your body sleeps alone or not— so if there is to be a place for you, for you it must not be located in plaster and tile and space, it will have to be in that other house, the one whose door you felt opening just last night when you dialed from memory and your friend picked up the phone.

The time is come I must departe from thee, ah, famous Citie: I never yet, to rue my smart, did finde that thou hadst pitie, Wherefore small cause ther is, that I should greeve from thee to go: But many Women foolyshly, lyke me, and other moe. Doe such a fyxed fancy set, on those which least desarve, That long it is ere wit we get, away from them to swarve, But tyme with pittie oft wyl tel to those that wil her try: Whether it best be more to mell, or vtterly defye. And now hath time me put in mind, of thy great cruelnes: That never once a help wold finde, to ease me in distres. Thou never yet woldst credit geve to boord me for a yeare: Nor with Apparell me releve except thou payed weare. No, no, thou never didst me good, nor ever wilt, I know: Yet am I in no angry moode, but wyll, or ere I goe, In perfect love and charytie my Testament here write: And leave to thee such Treasurye, as I in it recyte. Now stand a side and geve me leave to write my latest Wyll: And see that none you do deceave, of that I leave them tyl. I whole in body, and in minde, but very weake in Purse: Doo make, and write my Testament for feare it wyll be wurse. And fyrst I wholy doo commend, my Soule and Body eke: To God the Father and the Son, so long as I can speake. And after speach: my Soule to hym, and Body to the Grave: Tyll time that all shall rise agayne, their Judgement for to have. And then I hope they both shal meete. to dwell for aye in ioye: Whereas I trust to see my Friends releast, from all annoy. Thus have you heard touching my soule, and body what I meane: I trust you all wyll witnes beare, I have a stedfast brayne. And now let mee dispose such things, as I shal leave behinde: That those which shall receave the same, may know my wylling minde. I firste of all to London leave because I there was bred: Braue buildyngs rare, of Churches store, and Pauls to the head. Betweene the same: fayre streats there bee, and people goodly store: Because their keeping craveth cost, I yet wil leave him more. First for their foode, I Butchers leave, that every day shall kyll: By Thames you shal have Brewers store, and Bakers at your wyll. And such as orders doo obserue, and eat fish thrice a weeke: I leave two Streets, full fraught therwith, they neede not farre to seeke. Watlyng Streete, and Canwyck streete, I full of Wollen leave: And Linnen store in Friday streete, if they mee not deceave. And those which are of callyng such, that costlier they require: I Mercers leave, with silke so rich, as any would desyre. In Cheape of them, they store shal finde and likewise in that streete: I Goldsmithes leave, with Iuels such, as are for Ladies meete. And Plate to furnysh Cubbards with, full braue there shall you finde: With Purle of Siluer and of Golde, to satisfye your minde. With Hoods, Bungraces, Hats or Caps, such store are in that streete: As if on ton side you should misse the tother serues you feete. For Nets of every kynd of sort, I leave within the pawne: French Ruffes, high Purles, Gorgets and Sleeves of any kind of Lawne. For Purse or Kniues, for Combe or Glasse, or any needeful knacke I by the Stoks have left a Boy, wil aske you what you lack. I Hose doo leave in Birchin Lane, of any kynd of syse: For Women stitchte, for men both Trunks and those of Gascoyne gise. Bootes, Shoes or Pantables good store, Saint Martins hath for you: In Cornwall, there I leave you Beds, and all that longs thereto. For Women shall you Taylors have, by Bow, the chiefest dwel: In every Lane you some shall finde, can doo indifferent well. And for the men, few Streetes or Lanes, but Bodymakers bee: And such as make the sweeping Cloakes, with Gardes beneth the Knee. Artyllery at Temple Bar, and Dagges at Tower hyll: Swords and Bucklers of the best, are nye the Fleete vntyll. Now when thy Folke are fed and clad with such as I have namde: For daynty mouthes, and stomacks weake some Iunckets must be framde. Wherfore I Poticaries leave, with Banquets in their Shop: Phisicians also for the sicke, Diseases for to stop. Some Roysters styll, must bide in thee, and such as cut it out: That with the guiltlesse quarel wyl, to let their blood about. For them I cunning Surgions leave, some Playsters to apply. That Ruffians may not styll be hangde, nor quiet persons dye. For Salt, Otemeale, Candles, Sope, or what you els doo want: In many places, Shops are full, I left you nothing scant. Yf they that keepe what I you leave, aske Mony: when they sell it: At Mint, there is such store, it is vnpossible to tell it. At Stiliarde store of Wines there bee, your dulled mindes to glad: And handsome men, that must not wed except they leave their trade. They oft shal seeke for proper Gyrles, and some perhaps shall fynde: (That neede compels, or lucre lures to satisfye their mind.) And neare the same, I houses leave, for people to repayre: To bathe themselues, so to preuent infection of the ayre. On Saturdayes I wish that those, which all the weeke doo drug: Shall thyther trudge, to trim them vp on Sondayes to looke smug. Yf any other thing be lackt in thee, I wysh them looke: For there it is: I little brought but nothyng from thee tooke. Now for the people in thee left, I have done as I may: And that the poore, when I am gone, have cause for me to pray. I wyll to prisons portions leave, what though but very small: Yet that they may remember me, occasion be it shall: And fyrst the Counter they shal have, least they should go to wrack: Some Coggers, and some honest men, that Sergantes draw a back. And such as Friends wyl not them bayle, whose coyne is very thin: For them I leave a certayne hole, and little ease within. The Newgate once a Monthe shal have a sessions for his share: Least being heapt, Infection might procure a further care. And at those sessions some shal skape, with burning nere the Thumb: And afterward to beg their fees, tyll they have got the some. And such whose deedes deserueth death, and twelue have found the same: They shall be drawne vp Holborne hill, to come to further shame: Well, yet to such I leave a Nag shal soone their sorowes cease: For he shal either breake their necks or gallop from the preace. The Fleete, not in their circuit is, yet if I geve him nought: It might procure his curse, ere I unto the ground be brought. Wherfore I leave some Papist olde to vnder prop his roofe: And to the poore within the same, a Boxe for their behoofe. What makes you standers by to smile. and laugh so in your sleeve: I thinke it is, because that I to Ludgate nothing geve. I am not now in case to lye, here is no place of iest: I dyd reserve, that for my selfe, yf I my health possest. And ever came in credit so a debtor for to bee. When dayes of paiment did approch, I thither ment to flee. To shroude my selfe amongst the rest, that chuse to dye in debt: Rather then any Creditor, should money from them get. Yet cause I feele my selfe so weake that none mee credit dare: I heere reuoke: and doo it leave, some Banckrupts to his share. To all the Bookebinders by Paulles because I lyke their Arte: They e'ry weeke shal mony have, when they from Bookes departe. Amongst them all, my Printer must, have somwhat to his share: I wyll my Friends these Bookes to bye of him, with other ware. For Maydens poore, I Widdoers ritch, do leave, that oft shall dote: And by that meanes shal mary them, to set the Girles aflote. And wealthy Widdowes wil I leave, to help yong Gentylmen: Which when you have, in any case be courteous to them then: And see their Plate and Iewells eake may not be mard with rust. Nor let their Bags too long be full, for feare that they doo burst. To e'ry Gate vnder the walles, that compas thee about: I Fruit wives leave to entertayne such as come in and out. To Smithfeelde I must something leave my Parents there did dwell: So carelesse for to be of it, none wolde accompt it well. Wherfore it thrice a weeke shall have, of Horse and neat good store, And in his Spitle, blynd and lame, to dwell for evermore. And Bedlem must not be forgot, for that was oft my walke: I people there too many leave, that out of tune doo talke. At Bridewel there shal Bedelles be, and Matrones that shal styll See Chalke wel chopt, and spinning plyde, and turning of the Mill. For such as cannot quiet bee, but striue for House or Land: At Th' innes of Court, I Lawyers leave to take their cause in hand. And also leave I at ech Inne of Court, or Chauncerye: Of Gentylmen, a youthfull roote, full of Actiuytie: For whom I store of Bookes have left, at each Bookebinders stall: And parte of all that London hath to furnish them withall. And when they are with study cloyd: to recreate theyr minde: Of Tennis Courts, of dauncing Scooles, and fence they store shal finde. And every Sonday at the least, I leave to make them sport. In diuers places Players, that of wonders shall reporte. Now London have I (for thy sake) within thee, and without: As coms into my memory, dispearsed round about Such needfull thinges, as they should have heere left now unto thee: When I am gon, with consience, let them dispearced bee. And though I nothing named have, to bury mee withall: Consider that aboue the ground, annoyance bee I shall. And let me have a shrowding Sheete to couer mee from shame: And in obliuyon bury mee and never more mee name. Ringings nor other Ceremonies, vse you not for cost: Nor at my buriall, make no feast, your mony were but lost. Reioyce in God that I am gon, out of this vale so vile. And that of ech thing, left such store, as may your wants exile. I make thee sole executor, because I lou'de thee best. And thee I put in trust, to geve the goodes unto the rest. Because thou shalt a helper neede, In this so great a chardge, I wysh good Fortune, be thy guide, least thou shouldst run at lardge. The happy dayes and quiet times, they both her Seruants bee. Which well wyll serue to fetch and bring, such things as neede to thee. Wherfore (good London) not refuse, for helper her to take: Thus being weake and wery both an end heere wyll I make. To all that aske what end I made, and how I went away: Thou answer maist like those which heere, no longer tary may. And unto all that wysh mee well, or rue that I am gon: Doo me comend, and bid them cease my absence for to mone. And tell them further, if they wolde, my presence styll have had: They should have sought to mend my luck; which ever was too bad. So fare thou well a thousand times, God sheelde thee from thy foe: And styll make thee victorious, of those that seeke thy woe. And (though I am perswade) that I shall never more thee see: Yet to the last, I shal not cease to wish much good to thee. This, xx. of October I, in ANNO DOMINI: A Thousand: v. hundred seuenty three as Alminacks descry. Did write this Wyll with mine owne hand and it to London gaue: In witnes of the standers by, whose names yf you wyll have. Paper, Pen and Standish were: at that same present by: With Time, who promised to reveale, so fast as she could hye The same: least of my nearer kyn, for any thing should vary: So finally I make an end no longer can I tary.

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing, And like enough thou knowst thy estimate. The Charter of thy worth gives thee releasing; My bonds in thee are all determinate. For how do I hold thee but by thy granting, And for that riches where is my deserving? The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting, And so my patent back again is swerving. Thy self thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing, Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking, So thy great gift, upon misprision growing, Comes home again, on better judgement making. Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter: In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.

I shall not sprinkle with dust A creature so clearly lunar; You must die—but of course you must— And better later than sooner. But if it should be in a year That year itself must perish; How dingy a thing is fear, And sorrow, how dull to cherish! And if it should be in a day That day would be dark by evening, But the morning might still be gay And the moon have golden leavening. And beauty’s a moonlight grist That comes to the mills of dying; The silver grain may be missed But there’s no great good in crying. Though luminous things are mould They survive in a glance that crossed them, And it’s not very kind to scold The empty air that has lost them. The limpid blossom of youth Turns into a poison berry; Having perceived this truth I shall not weep but be merry. Therefore die when you please; It’s not very wise to worry; I shall not shiver and freeze; I shall not even be sorry. Beautiful things are wild; They are gone, and you go after; Therefore I mean, my child, To charm your going with laughter. Love and pity are strong, But wisdom is happily greater; You will die, I suppose, before long, Oh, worser sooner than later!

goodbye city. goodbye stoop. goodbye rush hour traffic plume. goodbye feminist qpoc weed delivery group. goodbye cheap noodle spot on the corner. goodbye drag bar next door serving the messy deep into the dead eggplant evening. goodbye drunks screaming about literally nothing below my window. goodbye window & all it’s seen & forgiven. goodbye urine stains talking shit between parked cars. goodbye stars erased from the polluted heavens. goodbye getting my steps in. goodbye highway streaked red & white with shipments of grapefruit trucked in by the refrigerated crateful. goodbye angels dressed in thrifted robes. goodbye locusts — i’ll see you in a decade or so. i’m beguiled by & guided by goodbyes : meaning go ye with god : meaning ghost-flushed & godless : meaning guided by some guy away. who cares who? some new charon who smiles big as a river. who rivers big as i ferry with him toward death. the city you’re in now will never be the city you live in again. the ferryman with his good bile smiles good with his good will toward men. with his good guiding arm. no need for goodbyes when i got this phone where i can visit both my living and my dead. good grief. what’s my root for all this avoidance? for never saying peace to anyone’s living face? for this foolish and footloose decree? my casual excuses for slipping out the back door before the party gets lit? must be the  jew in me. this blood doctrine. my family who survived what i cannot write, never said goodbye, only,i’ll see you again soon. the stories we carried are the only country i’ll pledge my sword to, guiding me even now toward the safety of strange men’s rooms through cruisy city parks. exile is an heirloom. plant your sneakers in the garden so as not to bury your children in the backyard. goodbye park bench. goodbye best friends. goodbye graffiti at union & metropolitan that reads godbye krewl world written moments before that poor girl leapt out into the electric commuter dark. when god closes a door, he bolts it — god the comptroller : god the poorly contoured : god the slumlord. boards up the building before you can flee the house. gone the orator. gone the forest. gone the morgan stop bookshop before i even moved here. everywhere was better before humans came and gave it language. god the skyline’s remarkable this time of day — light tricked through the carbon in the atmosphere. god even the leaves are changing and going away. god the rivers flooded with factory waste and the air’s been replaced with arrogance. my therapist wants closure, but i ghost the session. i text, transition from one state of matter to the next. goodbye city. goodbye stoop. when i moved you were already gone. a simulacrum. a worn photocopy of what brought us in by the refrigerated crateful and when i return you’ll be even further distorted, disoriented organism, a fourth mortgage, an organ exhausted by fingers, yet still at night anyone who sleeps in you’s bathed in gold. to all my dead, i’ll see you again soon. to all my living, let bygones be gone by the time you take this next breath. let’s live instead here, in this transitional state. the instant water evaporates. riding the trains below the city.

At the last turn in the path “goodbye—” —bending, bowing, (moss and a bit of wild bird-) down. Daitoku-ji Monastery

Not knowing in what season this again Not knowing when again the arms outyearning Nor the flung smile in eyes not knowing when Not sure beyond all doubt of full return Not sure of time now nor the film’s reversal This all done opposite, the waif regathered Like our lost parents in the blinded song We bag in hand with wandering steps and slow Through suburbs take our solitary way Not that all clouds are garrisoned and stung Not that horizons loom with coppered legions Not that the year is dark with weird condition All who parted in all days looked back Saw the white face, the waving. And saw the sea Not knowing in what season this again For well they knew, the parters in all evenings Druid and Roman and the rocked Phoenician: The blood flows one imposed way, and no other

Every construction is temporary, including the fire altar. — Roberto Calasso Accommodate the action in your life to wrest the deep perspective of the real from cubic content realms of atmosphere at play beyond the bank and shoal of time. Then resonance begins, and all vibrates. The syntax of position no more sculpts this world of interpenetrative forms than syntaxes of motion render grace. Yet syntax is the caul on all our births; and mothers claw the membrane from our eyes to fret us into life, in losing theirs. From there, each choice engraves a different choice. The decades pass. One needle for one groove. The canticles flare chaos from the spin. The gyre to crackly zero stays the same. (You’ve got to love the Hindus more than most.) We saw grand sweeps of swells from tiny arcs. We sliced the wave face, tumbling into light. My mother hugged me good-bye at seventy-three, knowing, just then, her strength may outlive mine. Accommodate the action in your life, she said, to aeronautical exhausts of every plane and cab I ever caught (my own arcs more elaborate than most). Accommodate the action of your life, she seemed to say: make past and future fuse. I felt her fingers dig into my back: That strength I had is yours. Things die. Not love.

Farewell thou thing, time past so known, so dear To me as blood to life and spirit; near, Nay, thou more near than kindred, friend, man, wife, Male to the female, soul to body; life To quick action, or the warm soft side Of the resigning, yet resisting bride. The kiss of virgins, first fruits of the bed, Soft speech, smooth touch, the lips, the maidenhead : These and a thousand sweets could never be So near or dear as thou wast once to me. O thou, the drink of gods and angels! wine That scatter'st spirit and lust, whose purest shine More radiant than the summer's sunbeam shows; Each way illustrious, brave, and like to those Comets we see by night, whose shagg'd portents Foretell the coming of some dire events, Or some full flame which with a pride aspires, Throwing about his wild and active fires; 'Tis thou, above nectar, O divinest soul ! Eternal in thyself, that can'st control That which subverts whole nature, grief and care, Vexation of the mind, and damn'd despair. 'Tis thou alone who, with thy mystic fan, Workst more than wisdom, art, or nature can To rouse the sacred madness and awake The frost-bound blood and spirits, and to make Them frantic with thy raptures flashing through The soul like lightning, and as active too. 'Tis not Apollo can, or those thrice three Castalian sisters, sing, if wanting thee. Horace, Anacreon, both had lost their fame, Hads't thou not fill'd them with thy fire and flame. Phoebean splendour! and thou, Thespian spring! Of which sweet swans must drink before they sing Their true pac'd numbers and their holy lays, Which makes them worthy cedar and the bays. But why, why longer do I gaze upon Thee with the eye of admiration? Since I must leave thee, and enforc'd must say To all thy witching beauties, Go away. But if thy whimpering looks do ask me why, Then know that nature bids thee go, not I. 'Tis her erroneous self has made a brain Uncapable of such a sovereign As is thy powerful self.   Prithee not smile, Or smile more inly, lest thy looks beguile My vows denounc'd in zeal, which thus much show thee That I have sworn but by thy looks to know thee. Let others drink thee freely, and desire Thee and their lips espous'd, while I admire And love thee, but not taste thee. Let my muse Fail of thy former helps, and only use Her inadultrate strength: what's done by me Hereafter shall smell of the lamp, not thee.

This saying good-bye on the edge of the dark And cold to an orchard so young in the bark Reminds me of all that can happen to harm An orchard away at the end of the farm All winter, cut off by a hill from the house. I don't want it girdled by rabbit and mouse, I don't want it dreamily nibbled for browse By deer, and I don't want it budded by grouse. (If certain it wouldn't be idle to call I'd summon grouse, rabbit, and deer to the wall And warn them away with a stick for a gun.) I don't want it stirred by the heat of the sun. (We made it secure against being, I hope, By setting it out on a northerly slope.) No orchard's the worse for the wintriest storm; But one thing about it, it mustn't get warm. "How often already you've had to be told, Keep cold, young orchard. Good-bye and keep cold. Dread fifty above more than fifty below." I have to be gone for a season or so. My business awhile is with different trees, Less carefully nourished, less fruitful than these, And such as is done to their wood with an axe— Maples and birches and tamaracks. I wish I could promise to lie in the night And think of an orchard's arboreal plight When slowly (and nobody comes with a light) Its heart sinks lower under the sod. But something has to be left to God.