A LIFE EXAMINED

'Real friendship, like real poetry, is extremely rare and precious as a pearl.'

Tahar Ben Jelloun

In much the same way as painters create self-portraits or insert small cameos of themselves in group portraits, a poet often pens something of his own image, often disguised, in his poems.

RECLUSE

All scattered to the winds and ways,

like blushing cherry blossom blown,

the friends, he knew when not full-grown,

have vanished from his elder days.

The carelessness of childhood meant

that friendships were a thing to find

then let escape. 

No contract signed.

No deal. 
A currency unspent.

If friendships had been coins or gold,

he might have locked inside a cage

all he had gathered to assuage

the loneliness of growing old.