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Say Goodbye

There is a PLACE where my story began that became most difficult
to understand and left a bitter TASTE, an ugly TRACE that was hard to ERASE. Most of its people were loving, but it was a cruel place, an insult to the   entire human RACE.

Its past and present were paved with POVERTY. Underprivileged is one      thing, but this was AGONY.  Childhood labor was both brutal and futile.
For me and others I knew, it held no future. I wish that it were a pleasing place; but it was not, compelling a bid farewell.  So, with haste and
pleasure, I departed at seventeen.

There is another wintry place where my first child's story began. Within
seven years, I journeyed from CHILDHOOD, to MANHOOD, to FATHERHOOD.        This quiet place was most PLEASING, never DECEIVING, and its people were really awesome. The warmth and love SHOWN there were like none we had    KNOWN. The one year we lived there was very brief, yet so dear and enduring. But a job assignment forced our sad exit when I was twenty-four.

There is yet another place, perhaps with less POVERTY, but a lot of NOVELTY.
I often heard my father say, "I'm going out WEST where the eagle builds       its NEST". Perhaps he wanted to, but he never went West. However, I did   go West and sojourned there for more than forty years. I thought that I would    always be there, never to roam anymore, never to say farewell anymore.
My feeling for it was STRONG, and I felt like I BELONGED.

Although this abode engendered a greater sense of belonging, more like  
home than any other, I, with great reluctance moved away at the age of seventy-two.  With a deep and hurtful CRY, I said GOODBYE.

It bemoans me to think that I have loved every place I have lived, and
never desired to say goodbye, except to the place where I was born.


070922PSCtest, Strong Emotions, Emile Pinet

Copyright © Curtis Johnson | Year Posted 2022

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