- A Thousand Times Goodbye –

John Herlihy

A thousand times I have said goodbye,

A thousand times I did not know why.

To say goodbye means this and more,

To leave behind the intimacy of before.

When we at first met and did say hello,

Now seems as an eternity of long ago.

Never did we think we may ever part,

Not later on, and never from the start.

Every day that comes and that goes by,

Every day seems like another goodbye.

Why say goodbye when you never left,

Leave-taking seems as a form of theft.

Forget goodbye, let us again say hello,

Like a thousand falling flakes of snow.

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(c) John Herlihy November 2018