The Taste Of Absence Poem by Martins Akhoeneto

Do not spend your life
explaining the warmth of a fire
to those who have mistaken it for sunlight.

When your giving becomes ordinary,
your sacrifices disappear into expectation,
and your presence earns no more
than the silence of those you sustain,
withdraw.

You cannot force the blind
to recognize the shape of light,
nor teach an indifferent heart
the weight of what it holds.

Even the rarest spice
is invisible in a well seasoned meal;
only when it is missing
does the tongue begin to understand.

So leave where your worth must plead
for the dignity of being seen.
Let your absence speak the truth
your presence was never permitted to tell.

You need not return
to prove what they have lost.
Some lessons arrive too late,
when the table is still set
but nothing tastes the same.