Graduation/Affirmation

To the graduates:

There is a certain way to live your life,
a way that surely causes strife
in the hearts of those who bid it true,
that you would never leave – as you surely must do.
We've watched you grow from the ground up high,
and we're left in the smoke of you soaring in the sky.
Though at most we request that you don't get us wrong,
as you're dressed in your best and recalling a song
that was your lullaby as a child, as we're biding you adieu,
sending you to a home you have long since dreamt pursue -
“somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue,
and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.”

Now we've travelled from a far so that we may be here.
Please don't mind the sound of the tears
dripping from our searing eyes and don't mind the
“We never want you to leave”'s  and the “we'll miss you by and bye”'s,
because you can't go a changin' and expectin' us not to cry.
We're losing a good soul today to something more calling and
sprawling, enthralling.

Comforting we know it's true -
that you'll do good and well, as you're giving them hell,
in whatever it is that you do.