Good Riddance, a special edition post

Our Saturday series is here today in the form of a poem for you.

The winter sun saying its early goodbye in upstate New York near our home

Happy Saturday everyone, welcome back to Good Riddance, our weekly series where we gather to let something go from the week before, however big or small. I’m sharing today’s Good Riddance in a post instead of the chat, because as I was writing it, it turned into a poem that I was not intending— or maybe I was and didn’t know it. Please enjoy the audio version of this poem as well, with a little music by the great Boards of Canada. I hope you’ll return to it over the winter months whenever you need to.

The days are getting colder, warm with quiet. 
The leaves are curling in and clinging on 
to each other, joining everything ending all around them. 
Wolf spiders make homes inside the bark of tall trees, 
the glow of the day disappears before the light does 
and the sun crawls into the sheets of the horizon 
to rest her big burning eyes.

Everything is going. 
Everything is going, in, in, in. 

I’m joining the cold, and the quiet, 
and the leaves, the spiders, and trees 
and going. Going in, in, in. 

I’m saying goodbye to November, its painful start, 
election night shock followed by the wild ride 
of a million bucking emotions. 

Goodbye to the midnight taxi ride over the Brooklyn bridge that night, 
news of Pennsylvania outcomes on the radio, 
the Statue of Liberty in the distance, unbothered. 
I’m saying goodbye to the shell shock weeks that followed, 
the predictable dominos of blame, finger pointing 
in every direction but the self. 

How I scooped up those I love, and even those I don’t
in the joined palms of my hands 
holding puddles of them without spilling a drop.

Goodbye to the immediate cruelty, the jokes 
from broken boys raised by fathers 
who never read them a single poem before bed.
All clowns are born from a sadness 
and a fear that needed a way out.
Yes, and. Amen. 

Everything is going. 
Everything is going, in, in, in. 

The dark day will give in to the white nightlight of snow, and so on 
and so: everything is a goodbye just before a hello. 
And you and I will still be here, 
statues of liberty; a human chain of hearts
carrying each other across the finish line. 

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What are you letting go of, or saying goodbye to, friends? Please share your let gos today in the comments below.