by W. S. Merwin    My friends without shields walk on the target    It is late the windows are breaking    My friends without shoes leave    What they love    Grief moves among them as a fire among    Its bells    My friends without clocks turn    On the dial they turn    They part    My friends with names like gloves set out    Bare handed as they have lived    And nobody knows them    It is they that lay the wreaths at the milestones it is their    Cups that are found at the wells    And are then chained up    My friends without feet sit by the wall    Nodding to the lame orchestra    Brotherhood it says on the decorations    My friend without eyes sits in the rain smiling    With a nest of salt in his hand    My friends without fathers or houses hear    Doors opening in the darkness    Whose halls announce    Behold the smoke has come home    My friends and I have in common    The present a wax bell in a wax belfry    This message telling of    Metals this    Hunger for the sake of hunger this owl in the heart    And these hands one    For asking one for applause    My friends with nothing leave it behind    In a box    My friends without keys go out from the jails it is night    They take the same road they miss    Each other they invent the same banner in the dark    They ask their way only of sentries too proud to breathe    At dawn the stars on their flag will vanish    The water will turn up their footprints and the day will rise    Like a monument to my    Friends the forgotten