Departure!

Raise the anchor
and raise the sail
Now the wind blows

Two compasses
inside of me
turn their lights on

The first one tells
where to go
by private signals

The second one
interprets the stories
from the sun, stars, sea, and the wind

Decoding the two 
from inner voice
and from the world

I decide
to turn the prow
adventure is there

How big the sea
Can't resist
the wind and waves in front

By drifting
and grounding
learned from the past

But being friends
with wind and waves
weaving own rhythm

New route appears
in each moment
to an unknown world

Seeing the land
lower the sail
and descend the anchor

Earth fertilises
the sailor's soul
to go back to the sea

You’re just like a balloon
That I wanted so dearly
Like a child so amused
With the feeling and its hues.

One day as I watch you
As distant as always,
I didn’t know it was the day
You’ll be wanting to stay.

I’m the child, you’re my balloon
We’ll forever stay in tune;
I dance with you under the sun,
I dream of you under the moon.

One day you flew away,
Another child wanted you to stay.
You left me, empty and lonely;
Feeling the mark from your string.

We bid each other farewell beside the hill,
Alas, the sun has flees.
Feeling the withered petal from plum blossom trees,
In spring, the grass will return,
But will my friend return?

In eastern hill, the lake is murky,
sky wearing crimson colour flurries.
There're rumors of a mysterious sage
Who could answer many worries.
I find I'm crowded full of parting's feelings,
Alas, he does not wish for healing.

Departed
by Michael R. Burch

Already, I miss you,
though your parting kiss is still warm on my lips.

Now the floor is not strewn with your stockings and slips
and the dishes are all put away.

You left me today . . .
and each word left unspoken now whispers regrets.

Keywords/Tags: divorce, parting, separation, departure, kiss, goodbye, farewell, leaving, gone, absent, absence, loneliness, alienation, isolation, unspoken, words, whispers, regrets, sadness, sorrow, despair

Each Color a Scar
by Michael R. Burch

What she left here,
upon my cheek,
is a tear.

She did not speak,
but her intention
was clear,

and I was meek,
far too meek, and, I fear,
too sincere.

What she can never take
from my heart
is its ache;

for now we, apart,
are like leaves
without weight,

scattered afar
by love, or by hate,
each color a scar.

Keywords/Tags: love, scar, cheek, tear, intention, departure, separation, meek, sincere, heartache, leaves, falling, scattered, color, blood, scab, scabs

The Pain of Love
by Michael R. Burch

for T. M.

The pain of love is this:
the parting after the kiss;

the train steaming from the station
whistling abnegation;

each interstate’s bleak white bar
that vanishes under your car;

every hour and flower and friend
that cannot be saved in the end;

dear things of immeasurable cost ...
now all irretrievably lost.

Note: The title “The Pain of Love” was suggested by an interview with Little Richard, then eighty years old, in Rolling Stone. He said that someone should create a song called “The Pain of Love.” I have always found the departure platforms of railway stations and the vanishing broken white bars of highway dividing lines to be terribly depressing. Keywords/Tags: pain, love, parting, kiss, train, whistle, departure, platform, interstate, dividing, line, hour, flower, friend, lost, cost

Life, a brief sojourn,
In an unknown airport lobby,
Between an arrival and departure.