THE FAREWELL

                                                      In Memoriam

                                          all the victims of the plague                

   

 

                        The speaker is a gay man dying of AIDS.          

          Now with accelerating force I feel

          the world fall back and reel away from me:  

                  

          Outside my window ceaselessly

          the wind streams by, and every tree

          spends itself terminally in leaves

          that give themselves into the air

          and twist away, fall down the street,

          scud, stumble, scurry out of sight

          under the culverts, into the night.   

          And all night long, beneath my dreams

          the world’s great, rushing rivers drain

          across the continents, down the wide plains,

          into the dark, dissolving sea.  

          All Nature gives itself away

          in perpetual farewell.  

          Now while my body’s failing cells

          detach themselves and drift away,

          you separate yourself from me.

          My hands, that once could keep you near,

          attempt to follow, tentatively,

          and lose themselves in empty air. 

          My eyes still seek your face, no longer there; 

          my ears strain after you, your voice, your feet

          retreating down hospital passageways.  

          My heart is gone;

          my soul has ceased to be my own;

          my thoughts no longer belong to me;
          my peace is broken, my pride pulled down.  

          Great is the power of Nature’s law,

          that every soul and body must obey;

          the writ that runs through every thing,
          the universal flaw;

          that not even Love can stay.