The Feast - Dorian Haarhoff

I have laid the round table
and set the seven-bit candle stick, centre-piece.
the hour is late. the chairs stand empty.
the invited guests have not come
nor sent regrets.

I go into the streets of the old town.
searching for discarded selves,
calling them by name.
the one in the ivory academy,
sawn-off from heart.
the one huddling in the alley
where whores hang their red lights.
the one whose face shows sea calm
while the ocean churns in his gut.
the one who sips jokes from a tap
and does not divine laughter from the well.
the one wandering the dry river bed
his tears sucked by the sun.

the boy who stood at his father’s grave
and wrote his first poem
and who in middle years
sat beside his mother’s body.

I embrace them one by one,
breast bone to breast bone
and I say
The table waits. the candles are lit.
drums strike the coming of the groom.
the festival begins
come and dine.

---

Dorian Haarhoff (born 1944) Namibia
Source: Badilisha Poetry