Farewell and not Goodbye Muhammad 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!”