i
Every face lifts with a smile
The wan and the beaming
Convexing this table of friends.
For thirty years and more
This cleft ensemble
Has melded our souls
Kept our differences
Yet burnished
Their insistent layers with shared meaning.
This gathering has always tempered our woes
Has given deep praise to our civic intent
Flowing onwards, on that rich gurgling laughter
Talisman to the course of our shared histoire:
The youngest now forty
The eldest twice plus ten.
ii
Winter
Outdoors
The wind blows gently.
The sun trails its rays upon the table.
Each voice floats across the warm scent
Of our broken bread
Food and words in sweet repose.
We listen, we laugh
We argue, we kiss.
This village of friendship
Restores the fractured world.
The senses are suffused
With a sharp human forgiveness
That encircles us all
Threading remembrance across the years
As though this bright lit world
Has always taken the treasured snaps
For some distant post holocaust world
Whereby survival wanly recalls
(in this pedagogy for ‘all souls’)
human kind and happiness:
artfully - À la recherche du temps perdu.
November 2018
Gar Jones