LEAVING (a sestina)

Now at the airport I wait for the plane,
Still wanting to tell you that maybe I'll stay.
But thoughts keep returning to four lonely girls
That we left behind. And I think of the times
That we are not there as they blossom and grow
Into the women we'd hoped they'd become.

Your country seduced me; a good reason to come?
Enough reason to follow your journey by plane?
You seemed then so eager for a place we could grow
Unfettered by daughters who needed to stay.
Uncertain, I packed, then unpacked several times
But ended up leaving that quartet of girls.

But life without them? I'd see faces of girls
That turned into faces of what they'd become -
Their faces before me. How many times
Would I reach out for them? It surely was plain
I needed to be there; what reason to stay?
Love that we ran after just didn't grow.

What grew was a vacuum. I felt it grow,
Pushing me back face to face with my girls
So silent, not asking, "Please won't you stay?"
And you never spoke of them. Will time ever come
That you think of them? No, I must board that plane;
And try to return to a place, to the times

Where all of us shared in the bad and the good times
Not one of us choosing a space that would grow
To a wasteland so vast it required a plane
To bring us together: you, me and the girls.
Would that could happen, all six of us come
And rejoice in reunion, all choosing to stsy.

Yet here I stand waiting; will anything stay
My slow steady walk that will take me to times
That are coming, so lonely, already have come?
I feel them possess me, I know grief will grow
Throughout the long hours 'til I see the girls
Mature now and lovely, meeting my plane.

What does it matter if you come or I stay?
With either it's plain that happier times
Never will grow for us -- you, me and the girls.