My Friends

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