Rage Against the Dying of the Light

It was the day we said “goodbye”
that I remember,
not the day you left us, forever,
although the news from that early,
early morning phone call
three days prior
will always stay with me.

I prefer to think of it as
a farewell gathering.
Your friends. Your family.
All of them mine.
Composure isn’t really important
in a situation like that, is it?
Yet, it is, in order to get through it,
and it was hard to maintain
after reading a moving poem
written for you by your grandson.

My own words, written
nine months earlier on a premonition,
long before any indication of
your pending departure,
sounded to me like the voice of
someone else, as I looked into the eyes of
your brother, your friend,
and saw your own looking back at me.

I imagine those eyes, still,
seeing me each step of the way, since then.
My years are now longer,
but will they ever be as full as yours?
While your last six months seemed like a lifetime,
you had not yet reached old age as you
raged, so long, against the dying of the light.

…with a respectful nod to Dylan Thomas.