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