old men dancing

I sit on a rough settle

outside an inn

in the shade of an ancient oak

 

watching crooked men,

in hand-me-down

black suits and hats

and polished shoes

gathering sedately

forming a shuffling line

 

throat clearing and crow cries

fill the square

with broken crockery melody

 

a numinous silence,

a pregnant hush

a trombone plays

they start to sing

 

crackety yet graceful,

they make a circle,

a nodding, dipping whirligig,

of once-strong arms

and walking sticks

 

no dervish troupe

spun with such precision

 

the circle peels open

with deliberate uncurling

then curling

and uncurling again

 

a tortoise choral train

snaking a dusty lane

till swallowed

in the twilight of trees

 

impressed, I drain my glass

 

behind the musician

the black stick-figures crest a hill

dancing their leaden sarabande

 

the breeze carries snatches of song

but nothing I can understand -

sounds mournful to me

 

I signal the waiter,

‘why the procession?

a celebration? or a lamentation?’

 

the waiter shrugs,

‘there is no reason. it is what they do. another?

’

I nod - my glass is filled.