I've Made Acquaintances in my Time

I’ve made acquaintances in my time,
Serviced in Franconia’s keep;
Far from home in country’s want,
Lost in reverie’s gilded days.
Good friends were they
Lost in reverie’s gilded days.
They drank in solace with my shade;
Minds were cast across the sea
As if in some dim middle passage
Returned we home as mere debris.
We.

Cognac spun us
Over midnight’s candle
Chirping drunk about the roofs,
Like Maryland and Michigan and Breukelen,
Wafting smoke in waking cheer.
Glasses lifted; hearts endeared.
We.

Hours passed apace —
Day on day, sec’ on sec’,
Time mounts as power ‘til old timers we,
Bottling friendships on the cupboard shelf.
We.

Who then are we, as time spends its golden sheen
Into the wind’s cold chalice.
Ten years have passed since then.
I think of soldiering man
Who spent his hours dark in drink;
Breathing not, nor thinking wild
Since wine had passed about the room
In chug or mug or helmet case.
For I have never seen again
Those dear old friends,
Those soldier men
From Michigan and Maryland
And fifty places much like them.
They’re erased!
As if I died or they;
Never to be here again at the day’s long end,
By their long returned home chum;
Their once upon a time, dear friend."

Edward C. Patterson
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1438220502 (paperback) http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0018V3WBO (Kindle) - 190 poems