Goodbye (Elder Jones) Poem by Imogene Wagner

It's just a mortal gesture, I don't know
Why people word goodbye when good friends go,
But somehow social unrest tangles me
Into this act, as if a sentence free
Of period stands and I must mark a dot
To make some order and an end—yet not
To stop your memory flowing through my mind,
But to deny expectancy and bind
The treasure of your hereness to the past;
You gave so very much to me to last,
I will not shake my fist into the sky
Because things end—but I must say goodbye!

(November 1948)