Waving Goodbye
by Wesley McNair
Why, when we say goodbye
at the end of an evening, do we deny
we are saying it at all, as in We'll
be seeing you, or I'll call, or Stop in,
somebody's always at home? Meanwhile, our friends,
telling us the same things, go on disappearing
beyond the porch light into the space
which except for a moment here or there
is always between us, no matter what we do.
Waving goodbye, of course, is what happens
when the space gets too large
for words – a gesture so innocent
and lonely, it could make a person weep
for days. Think of the hundreds of unknown
voyagers in the old, fluttering newsreel
patting and stroking the growing distance
between their nameless ship and the port
they are leaving, as if to promise I'll always
remember, and just as urgently, Always
remember me. It is loneliness, too,
that makes the neighbor down the road lift
two fingers up from his steering wheel as he passes
day after day on his way to work in the hello
that turns into goodbye? What can our own raised
fingers to for him, locked in his masculine
purposes and speeding away inside the glass?
How can our waving wipe away the reflex
so deep in the woman next door to smile
and wave on her way into her house with the mail,
we'll never know if she is happy
or sad or lost? It can't. Yet in that moment
before she and all the others and we ourselves
turn back to our disparate lives, how
extraordinary it is that we make this small flag
with our hands to show the closeness we wish for
in spite of what pulls us apart again
and again: the porch light snapping off,
the car picking its way down the road through the dark.
After a friend of mine sent this to me I probably read it every single day for two weeks.... some days more than once. I don't know why really. I mean... I really do like it, but it still is completely sad, and brutally honest. I think it hits me hard because, if I'm being honest in return... I am that person that waves as if to say "just as urgently, Always remember me.". I do the same thing with letters, emails, cards, calls, whatever. I mean, half of it is to make the person smile knowing I was thinking of them, and actually, it may be less than half the reason sometimes. 'Cause the rest of the reason is ... Think of me please. Is that too honest? I mean, of course, that's not the reason every single time. It's selfish. I know. We crave closeness. That's all.
