Farewell and not Goodbye Muhammad Ali!

A fond but tearful farewell to Muyhammad Ali.

By Stanley Collymore

 

How fittingly appropriate that so many millions of people

globally while obviously impracticably unable and for

perfectly obvious and good reasons to personally be

in attendance at your funeral Muhammad Ali will

nevertheless dependably and quite intently either

through simultaneously worldwide television

broadcast descriptions or else by means of

their multifaceted electronic devices and

personalized communications systems

be observing the final rites specifically associated

with your public, hometown-honoured but all

the same dignified burial. I shall be among

their number with tear-filled eyes and a

massive void in my heart taking it all

in as I silently, rather thoughtfully

and in addition prayerfully say

my own emotional farewell

to you, Muhammad Ali.

 

© Stanley V. Collymore

7 June 2016.

 

 

Author’s Remarks:

Goodbye is for failures or losers; Farewell however is for those who although they’re no longer physically with us don’t necessarily have to be, as they’re still currently in our hearts, our thoughts and our minds, and therefore indisputably, a most welcomed, continuing and a massively inspirational component in our respective lives as they’ve always been, and that’s precisely your legacy Muhammad Ali!

 

And the reason is specified here in Latin: “Vos autem sicut homines raro; mortuus est semel, sed solum vivat in aeternum!” Translated into English it reads: “People like you are rare; die only once but live eternally!” And in German: “Leute wie Sie sind selten; nur einmal gestorben, sondern ewig leben!”