Some Little Thoughts

Patience! It is my time to wait.
I sit here as the boulder waits to be ground down by the desert’s winds,
As the flower awaits the warmth of the sun.
I wait for the invitation to the Grand Banquet for one
Where I shall attend to eat my fill.
There is no charge for this indulgency: Nobody will proffer a bill
For the last and final feast, which will commence
At the stroke of one hour past thirteen o’clock:
Shall I refer to this lavish meal as the final recompense? 

Ah! What food and wine shall I ingest!
I shall eat and drink and never care about time.
I shall not glance (not even once) at the clock,
Or concern myself that I am overstaying.
The feast awaits me … and only me.
I am the guest and the host at this Grand Banquet of one, you see.
I wrote not the invitation, but I know the venue, the food, the wine,
Even the smallest details of this affair;
I know as the ancient water knows and flows, its name, now changed to The Serpentine. 

It is time! The arrangements have been made.
It is inevitable that the final feast be for one.
It has, always, been so, as constant as Polaris has always been,
As constant as the ebb and flow of the tides,
As constant as the changes of the seasons,
As constant as man’s inhumanity; and, sadly, as constant as man’s treacherous treasons.
The invitation has arrived and, now, is the time to attend
The Grand Banquet where no lavishness has been spared.
The Grand Banquet in my honour: And I leave, alone; no chaperone; not one friend. 

I listen to my footsteps, one by one, upon the wooden floor.
I see the light under the doorjamb.
I detect what should be the odours of the food, placed for my enjoyment,
I hear my name, announced in the manner of a prince:
The Grand Banquet is prepared, at last! But I recognise none of the dishes
As I enter the room! My expectations and wishes
For delectable foods and rare wines are dashed! My dreams sour
On viewing the bare table, made of the roughest wood:
Can this be the Grand Banquet, scheduled for sixty minutes past the thirteenth hour?