What do they feel, two old people who part
knowing quite certainly
they will never see each other again? Friends,
not necessarily
intimate friends, not lovers—old friends
who have known each other well, quite well, from youth;
years, many years.
How does it feel when they say good-bye for good?
No, I see no tears,
but a sharpening of the senses, heightening, glow,
ray from a red sunset, deepening
the colours in the hangings of memory.
Not fear, not defiance, but consciousness that night
is coming, to drain all colour from a cold world.