Leon Petty
The Importance of Saying Goodbye
After my father died in 1972
my crazy brother and my crazy self
had to send my Uncle Johnny to Tulsa
to live with my Aunt Juanita
because we didn’t think he could survive
our youthful wildness and the coming flails of Winter
Mysteriously
before he left on the train
he called me aside and said to me
“Leon, you done me alright”
But I hadn’t done him alright
I would creep down the stairs at night
and steal cigarettes out of his shirt pocket
and once I stole the $20 that he had given me
to buy him a supply of cigars
but he never said a word about it to me
The problem is that when he said
“Leon, you done me alright”
it set into my mind
a mystery that I would have to solve
It took me a long time to see
that in the Lord’s Prayer
“Forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us”
is not a supplication
That’s just the way it is
That to forgive is to set yourself free
from living a life of condemnation
and that my Uncle in his great wisdom
was just saying goodbye
And now I know that with every wrong I do
comes a new mystery that I must solve
spinning like a flaming sword
before the Gates of Eden
