by TaeHun Yoon, 3/3/2026

Departing happens quietly.
Not with the crash of doors,
but in the almost-silence
between one breath and the next.

A word spoken.
Or withheld.
An eyelid closing.
A hand, once tightly held beneath a deep embrace
loosening without ceremony.

For days now
my heart has walked in fog—
streets familiar,
yet unrecognizable.
I have misplaced my footing
in the ordinary rooms of morning.

A son—
forty years ripened—
declares his freedom.
As sons must.
As fathers dread.

He has gone before,
boomerang-bright,
circling back to the porch light.
But this time he says,
This is final.

The last-born,
third of three—
the smallest shadow once
moving along our walls—
now steps beyond them.

And I, already diminished,
enter the corridor of grief
before the suitcase is closed.
The heart rehearses absence
with a thousand small piercings.

There is no keeping.
Love does not cage.
It opens its hands.

So we say the necessary words:
Go, as you wish.
Go with our blessing.

Though something in us
folds inward,
like a house after winter,
like a door that will no longer turn
with his returning.

May his wings find their measure.
May anger not nest in his chest.
May strain not harden his heart.
May provision meet him
like daily bread.
May his long-held dreams
ripen without rot.

Already the rooms widen
with his absence.
Already the air changes.

Goodbye, little son—
not little,
and yet always.

Rise.
If I must lose you to the sky,
then be a great bird.
Circle high above our days.

And if the light is kind,
let us glimpse you—
once more—
in flight.