This is good-bye
old friend;
if not forever,
than at least for a while.
It’s been a good time,
no doubt about that,
but I stopped looking for good times
a long time ago.
They just don’t pay the dividends
that they did
when we were young.
They left me soft
and under-equipped
to deal with the hard times
when they come.
I know you’ve had your share
of hard times,
and I wish that there were more
that I could do,
than to send you off
with the idea
that seeking hard times
might save you.
That life of comfort is a noose
of soft and silken rope
and it slides down around our necks,
before it kicks the chair.
We don’t get our legs under us,
we just panic,
limbs flailing,
until consciousness narrows
and we go the way
of comfort.
All those insulating layers
are ill-fitted
to staving off
the cold and the conflict.
The less you seek it,
the more it finds you.
You draw it to you,
when you are prey.
So be the predator;
and as I see you go,
please know,
that I don’t wish to hear of sorrow.
Send me writ
of cities conquered,
of enemies vanquished,
of fear itself defeated.
Go with God, my friend
and if you don’t know Him,
then go with whatever
you still have in you
left to drive you
to slay Comfort;
that old demon.
HG – 2019
