Introduction
How to say goodbye is an unavoidable conundrum. As we learn how to live each day, we also learn how to leave and be left behind. Time carries us along until we are left reflecting on days past, opportunities taken and not, seasons constantly revolving, and hearts expanding and contracting with loves and lost loves. Old ways of thinking and being no longer fit us. We lose precious dear ones, and finally, in death, we say farewell to the material essence of our very selves.
In Issue 7 of Young Ravens Literary Review, writers, poets, and artists explore varying evolutions of the theme “So long, farewell.” Join us as we trace the beginning of time keeping from the burst of the Big Bang to the last cold atoms of star dust at the universe’s end. Explore nature, from the electric thrill of lightning striking with killing wildness to the soft fall and decay of leaves becoming one with the earth once more. Dive into friendships and relationships that frayed, then snapped, but left a scar called memory that some cherish, while others regret.
It might be that none of us can ever truly learn to let go as the past pulls us taut and still, anchoring us to moments and people in time. But perhaps we can transcend the worst periods of our existence by grasping for bright bits of kindness as we find them, fanning them with our own best hopes and attempted dreams—and then let these embers go again to share the warmth with others.
In Issue 7 of Young Ravens Literary Review, writers, poets, and artists explore varying evolutions of the theme “So long, farewell.” Join us as we trace the beginning of time keeping from the burst of the Big Bang to the last cold atoms of star dust at the universe’s end. Explore nature, from the electric thrill of lightning striking with killing wildness to the soft fall and decay of leaves becoming one with the earth once more. Dive into friendships and relationships that frayed, then snapped, but left a scar called memory that some cherish, while others regret.
It might be that none of us can ever truly learn to let go as the past pulls us taut and still, anchoring us to moments and people in time. But perhaps we can transcend the worst periods of our existence by grasping for bright bits of kindness as we find them, fanning them with our own best hopes and attempted dreams—and then let these embers go again to share the warmth with others.