When The Sigh That Seals Goodbye Is Breathed

 Have you begun yet...the evaluation of The Old,

The Resolution of The New?

If when the sigh that seals my cry is cast

And all accomplishment and charge is past

If, when the Author of life snuffs its wick

Like puff of wind across a candlestick

If, when the ebbing toll of day to day

Steals all but Intangible Soul away

If, when this speck of dust I trek and till

Is heaped up like a mole-hill, cold and still

If when the promises I vow to keep

And avid resolutions lie asleep

And all the happiness I held and sought

Is nothing more than someone else’s lot

If, when this glorious task of here and now

Is caught up in That Holy Undertow

Its fragments left with those I leave behind

To gather severed ends of ties that bind

If,when Time's Circumstantial Evidence

Has nothing left to show but recompense

After the Inevitable takes place

And plays its tear-notes on love’s downcast face

Please, may the groundwork where my footsteps fell

Serve those who follow then, and serve them well

May where I worked and wished and hoped and prayed

Be more than just a lot of lost noise made

And when the sigh that seals good-bye is breathed

I pray I leave love's noble Best bequeathed

When the ship called Forever hoists its mast

And seals the sigh that holds my farewell fast

© Janet Martin