Gone

Jim LaVilla-Havelin

May 15, 2022

“Why did they go away, do you think? If there ever were such things?”

                The Last Unicorn, Peter Beagle

lastness

and lasting

elasticity

(of a world which

                       can accommodate 

              so much loss

  and keep spinning)

and then

without so much 

as a word of farewell, not a trace left behind

they’re all 

gone

elasticity

(of an empathy and 

             arms to stretch to

                   gather them all up)

save what you can

every last one

before

they’re all gone.

Jim LaVilla-Havelin is a co-founder of San Antonio’s Stone in Stream/Roca en el Rio: a collective of writers and artists committed to the environment.