a species of goodbye
Karachi, Pakistan
2025, Junior, Poetry & Spoken Word
A Species of Goodbye
— A Story of Loss, Memory, and Quiet Returns
It was the kind of morning where the wind forgets to blow.
The sky hung still — not clouded, not clear — as if even the heavens paused, unsure of what to feel.
I walked along the gravel path to his grave,
my footsteps too loud,
my heartbeat too soft.
He was buried beneath an old neem tree,
its branches crooked like the fingers he once used to peel guavas for me.
The marble of the headstone was weathered now —
just like the stories he used to tell.
Of rivers so clean they mirrored the sky,
of peacocks that danced before the monsoon,
of fields where time walked barefoot.
He said the village smelled of rain and sugarcane,
where even grief took its time,
where silence wasn’t absence — just waiting.
But that village is gone.
Buried, not under dust —
but under a landfill that grows like a wound no one tends.
The peacocks are silent.
The river is a murky trickle.
And the guava tree —
cut down for a factory wall.
I kneeled, not to pray — but to remember.
That’s when it came.
A butterfly.
Not loud. Not dramatic.
Just there —
its wings the exact blue of the sky he used to draw for me,
with a thumb smudged in ink.
It sat on the edge of his name,
quietly.
As if reading it, like I did.
As if listening.
And in that breathless moment,
I didn’t cry.
Because he was there.
In the flutter.
In the stillness.
That was the first time I spoke to him again.
Not in words —
but in action.
I signed up for the park cleanup.
Started bringing seeds to the abandoned corner lot.
Built a butterfly garden with trembling hands —
planting wildflowers that hummed his stories.
Each wing that passed by became a syllable.
Each bloom, a memory.
Because grief is not just mourning —
it is movement.
It is a soft rebellion against forgetting.
And healing…
sometimes wears wings.
Now, when I tend to the garden,
and see a flash of blue or gold,
I whisper to it:
“Tell him I still remember.”
And I hope it flies far —
to where peacocks still cry
and rivers still dream.
Reflection
The idea for “a species of goodbye” was born from a deeply personal memory — visiting the grave of a loved one who used to share quiet moments with me under a neem tree. I found myself reflecting on the transformation of places we hold dear, and how memories often become the only living connection to what’s lost. That tension between decay and remembrance sparked the poem. My inspiration came from the natural world — especially butterflies, rivers, and old trees — as symbols of both fragility and resilience. Writers like Mary Oliver and Robin Wall Kimmerer, who intertwine grief, nature, and healing, also influenced my creative process. Through the Contest theme, “Connections to Nature: Looking Inside, Going Outside,” I’ve realized that nature is not just something we observe — it’s something we carry within us. The land holds our stories, and when it suffers, we grieve too. My message is this: memory is a form of activism. In honoring nature and those we’ve lost, we choose to remember — and in doing so, we begin to heal.