I sit and watch the people
Come around the bend

Man in a meaningless top hat
A fool’s smile plastered on his face
A dunce’s laugh ringing in his ears
The wise man’s words running through his head
Memories of courtly dances
And nighttime walks in shirttails.

Rosy-cheeked girl with the sun burnt into her bare arms
A twinkle caught from the stars and trapped in her eye
Forced into the clothes of modern day
Gangly and misplaced
But home and happy
With a lover’s promise in her heart
Unaware as yet that all things must pass

Three-legged man in the winter of his life
Stares blankly ahead
Trembling with the ague bound into his bones
Knows no more than I what he seeks
But he too, shall find no Ithaca
Only to reflect on the richness and fullness
Of what to him has seemed a dull life

Middlemerry woman
Starched and white to bring life
Awaken new eyes to a cold world
That they will, in fact, never see
Well-fed and content
But no mother herself
For young blood does not truly appeal to her

Two children, not so in their eyes
Holding sweaty hands with filthy nails
An apple an eye
Carefree and callous
Green and orange flashes
Clashing, like their souls shall too around the next bend
Solicitous talk to drop hands like fire
And view one another as children again

And at long last, the wisest of them all
Knowledge of the world written loosely into his wide brown eyes
Slack-jawed and wondering
Never expecting to know all
Bushy eyebrows under a tangle of brown hair
And a merry wink at the passing figures
A moving destination
Yet an island always passed at night

He takes my place
And watches me out of sight around the bend