"To part at last without kiss,
            Beside the haystack  in the floods."
                                            -William Morris.

I cannot give you reasons enough,
I do not myself understand

The loud lover, praying in sin,
Or the pain of those  who sin in prayer.

A good-bye hurts a hundred times more,
Emptying the soul, embittering the heart,

Much more than a fatal spear-wound
         would.
The happy love is flown, a by-gone glow;

Locked in memory's gloomy corridors;
A mere past, life imprisoned in grief;

Robbed of fulfillment, future condemned
       to tears,
Gazing sadly over the prey of previous
       existence.

A good-bye hurts.

                                             -by
                                  Hakim H. Kassim.
                                  (d. December 12, 1990)