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