Dinner with friends

Cedar by oak we saw them – and we celebrated,
That dinner on an ordinary evening, bright in memory, suffused with wine and joy
And the scent of books and berry fruit and flaked tobacco.

The Hunter of the East lay resting, no noose of light,
Merely candles in our bowl of night, illumining the warm embrace of new friends
Amid the conversation of bright-eyed, breathless dreamers.

There was no need for yellow ochre or Venetian red,
No hanker for ink’s old scratch, just spoken words – such words! – to paint our
Playful colours on the canvas of the years to come.
I think quietly we learned and loved – still love – that wisest smile,

Gentle, yes, but brazen, too, like Autumn’s lingering fires, a challenge
To brute Winter to dare to lead us, in so many ways, to crueller spaces.
And now, despite the widening tear of years and miles,
Those who want for lack of words won’t still that voice we love, or paint in place,

Or write of dreams, or grind away those hours of careless laughter.
Cedar by oak we saw them – and we celebrated,
A silent prayer for jasmine and for bluebell in a merrier Spring,

And the satisfying knowledge that our roots lie twined in older, richer earth:
Common and alive.

Ben Williams
12^th June 2009
For Kamal, recalling fondly our friendship forged during dinner, at Hillcroft, in Autumn 2005.

I am indebted to my talented former colleague Zeba Khan for finding time to translate Dinner with friends into Arabic