Merlin

I wake at five o’ clock

every morning this week

with no one else in the house

and now remember Sunday dinner,

slow eating like Arthur’s knights:

 

Andrew, Merlin, holding court.

 

He knows the names of days,

months, even seasons, but

has no time for clocks

when he sees a throng

of mates around a table

 

and nudges them into song.

 

He knows more than kings

that fortune has no era

finer than this moment;

that now it’s time to sit,

smile and clap in time:

 

urging that humans unite.