Edwin Thumboo
The Leaving
The Leaving
If you should go
Soft as midnight petal
Or the secret moon’s eclipse;
A flame that slays itself
Or pride turned pure in suffering,
Surely the heart will be undone.
If you should go,
Quietly taking such winds
As menace joyously, peeling
The thought within each seed,
Thus silence the womb’s last hope,
Surely certainties must break.
If you should go,
Dispersing invention, sap and root,
Those theorems which prime the eye,
Which calculate the gentleness of touch,
Making giving greater than receiving,
Surely the sun shall slip.
If you should go
Leave, leave rich tokens
No others can ever know,
A covenant of undivided light
Awaiting one return,
If you should go.