At Dusk

at dusk he waits in the city’s dying noise leaning against the empty house a square box of meaning: coming and going he greets every stranger on their way home who doesn’t know death The long silent falling of the sun is beautiful he can’t stand eating alone! what’s meaningless becomes meaningful: the wordless prayer around a worn-out table among unwrinkled faces of his offspring and his spent light grandfather needs less and less as he comes closer to his unknown gods he eats simply now as if with his eyes the same food he has fed his body and soul for eighty years he worships a grain of rice like a millionaire does a pearl ---LTG 1998