For Absent Friends

                  

    wine glasses

                                                                   remain    

                                                                                     amongst

                                                                         other objects    

                                                                            bereft

                                                                               of

                                                                            hands

                                                                       leave takings

                                                                     fond farewells

           

                                                        more urgent now to return

                                                            to that table

                                                                                those chairs

                                                                         those

                                                                              bottles

                                                                                of

                                                                             myth

                                                                       each return

                                                                   is another life

                                                               our myth is enriched

                                                         that table    those chairs

                                                        these glasses

                                                                     the touching of hands

                                                                           lips

                                                                         yet

                                                                      that place

                                                                does not detain us

                                                                        our eyes

                                                               carry it weightlessly

                                                                      recreate it

                                                                   in another time

                                                                     another place.


                                                                     Dick Russell

                                                            (C) Richard M Russell

                                                        first published in Lines Review.

                                                                        Scotland