At the banquet the guests
Eat without speaking
Look out the windows
to the empty fields.
Old candles, old wine
Old faces, old fools
No one knows
Everything is going
It is gone
Into a distant sea
to distant shore
Fallen down like
last year’s rain.
At the banquet
Such silent speculation
Such despair
They look out the windows
to the empty fields
To the edge of the earth
The light falls
The windows close
The curtains draw together
The night falls
like last year’s rain
At the banquet
They hide from
the empty night.
Everything is almost lost
Whatever comes
Whatever is left
may not fill the
small holes in their souls
As they fade
In the guttered candle smoke.
- Copyright Kay Winter