Carol, my answer would be that the first "let go" of the poem concerns "things".
We have let go of clutching things.
The concluding octave is a more profound "let go", involving the entire process of life, including death. And this total surrender to the process is a type of "falling in love".
It isn't that we're growing old.
It isn't that we've bested fear
or that we never wake to know
in spite of love, we die alone.
The air is cool and sweet with change.
Breathe in, it says, and let go.
It is enough to fall in love.
To fall in love and watch the world unfold.
There is no end to the "letting go" - it not something done once and for all, but a continuous process.
Ultimately, the last and hardest thing to be let go of, is the process of letting go itself.
------------------
Mark Allinson
[This message has been edited by Mark Allinson (edited November 27, 2004).]
|