My friends without shields walk on the target <br /> <br />It is late the windows are breaking <br /> <br />My friends without shoes leave <br />What they love <br />Grief moves among them as a fire among <br />Its bells <br />My friends without clocks turn <br />On the dial they turn <br />They part <br /> <br />My friends with names like gloves set out <br />Bare handed as they have lived <br />And nobody knows them <br />It is they that lay the wreaths at the milestones it is their <br />Cups that are found at the wells <br />And are then chained up <br /> <br />My friends without feet sit by the wall <br />Nodding to the lame orchestra <br />Brotherhood it says on the decorations <br />My friend without eyes sits in the rain smiling <br />With a nest of salt in his hand <br /> <br />My friends without fathers or houses hear <br />Doors opening in the darkness <br />Whose halls announce <br /> <br />Behold the smoke has come home <br /> <br />My friends and I have in common <br />The present a wax bell in a wax belfry <br />This message telling of <br />Metals this <br />Hunger for the sake of hunger this owl in the heart <br />And these hands one <br />For asking one for applause <br /> <br />My friends with nothing leave it behind <br />In a box <br />My friends without keys go out from the jails it is night <br />They take the same road they miss <br />Each other they invent the same banner in the dark <br />They ask their way only of sentries too proud to breathe <br /> <br />At dawn the stars on their flag will vanish <br /> <br />The water will turn up their footprints and the day will rise <br />Like a monument to my <br />Friends the forgotten<br /><br />William Stanley Merwin<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/my-friends/
