Circle

Reach a certain moment in your life, and you discover that your days are spent as much with the dead as they are with the living. Paul Auster



There are certain things that only poetry has an answer for. Maybe "answer" is a terribly wrong word too. Of course, somebody had already been talking about a similar subject, Heidegger I think. As a result, I am not saying anything new. There is no way to describe, in these ordinary words, so much.

Like for an example this evening that I have spent with an old friend of mine. Two old buddies, sitting in their favorite bar, enjoying a few beers. How prosaic. But let's see into this even further. The same people, the two of us, were sitting in the same bar one month ago. These two evenings; this one, and the one before, were so similar, maybe too similar.

In the night a month ago, there was a group of people sitting behind us. My friend knew most of the people in that group who were laughing and enjoying the evening likewe did. We had even shaken hands with them, before they were gone that night.

Here we are, on the same spot, same table, my friend and I. Only, there is no cheerful and loud crowd beside us - some girls are there and young fellas - they are not loud at all.



Let's go back to the night a month ago, when there was more of the life's noise around. Among the loud crowd sitting beside us, there was a person, that had shaken my hand too. The young man, his face is blurred in my memory now, but I recall his wide smile.

I didn't know him, but my friend did. He was the husband of my friend's friend's sister.

I shook hands with a man who is dead now. He died in a car accident a couple of weeks ago.

And here I am, laughing and enjoying my favorite topics with an old friend.

The same bar, the same chairs - the night is so similar to the night a month ago.