Poem by Samuel Blake
When someone is about to leave, stop;
look at their face and say goodbye: smile;
and know, that in that smile and look
you receive in return, may be a last
look and smile: a veritable photograph
in the mind that will memorialize the
moment, and permit a lifetime’s reflection.
Perhaps you will be hurried to catch a plane,
in a terminal filled with strangers. Or more trivial: they may leave for groceries:
stop, look at his or her face and smile, before they walk out the door; as that,
if they fail to return, you will have something left.
When a child or parent or sister speaks,
uttering even an almost inaudible whisper
listen, hear their voice and their words. It may be a happenstance of nothing, no meaning at
the time; but perhaps, all the world you have known, may well enough be brought to a standing
stillness — no longer things full. But in an act of listening, a sublime value may attach,
and usher forth a later viewing; a knowledge of time and sense beyond calculation.
Life is a motion of flowing photos, frame
after frame after frame. Inside the streaming, images become distorted,
disintegrate, into a clashing of what was and might have been.
Nature is man to the child; child to the man
is not the reverse; rather, an assimilation
into structure and measured frailty.
One can stare at a garden gate for hours,
hoping that someone will open it and walk
into your world again. Timeless and tearing,
the gate in truth is passage for you to that someone whom you didn’t stop and look
closely at and smile, or, someone’s voice
and casual utterance that you ignored. Rise up, unlatch the gate, give greeting on the other side,
and forgive yourself; as you will be with them; after passing onward and into a memorial world.
