I love this poem -- it is NOT a farewell -- I'm not sick, and with good fortune letting me dodge the freeway drunks, might have some more time on the planet -- but I'm an old fart, so I think in terms of the next waves, but could never say it as well as Charles Olson did in this poem he wrote as a young man:


Only the Red Fox, Only the Crow

You who come after us
you who can live when we are not
make much of love

You to whom the spring can return
when we will merely correlate a worm
enjoy the envy
in this blind glance

You who shall have the earth,
and one another,
the government of noon,
do not fail us, dance

We shall not know, but you
remember this: the two-edged worth
of loveliness
The night's for talking and for kissing

And when, on summer field
two horses run for joy
like figures on a beach
your mind will find us,
as we have found,
within its reach.

This, then, under the leaves
or under snow,
you who come after us,
we send you for envoy:
make most of love.


Charles Olson, 1948