NICHOLAS TEACHES US ABOUT LEAVING

 

We are the group

Come together to be

The group and only by this

Are we the group. This arcane

Construction of therapy

The circle

Which begins before we exist

And will

Exist after

We leave, we mirror

The universe. Each of us carries

Our dark package into the room.

Each night we unwrap a little more.

A death here, a separation there

A longing that will never be filled

A vampire feast

Where little victories are entrees

Still the work shines

In its own dull light.

When Nicholas speaks about his mother

We hear the tightening noose of the old double-bind

Love.

Money and Power -

Jealous children peaking through a crack

In the ballroom door we squeal

And touch its shining teeth

And scars.

He is the one who needs this most I think

As he the one who prepares to go.

With his major problem which was leaving -

Wives and lovers mostly -

Taught us some nobility, humble

And as close to real as I will ever know.

With each of us he left a gift

His words hang around the circle like fire

This ritual in the age of fake ritual.

This coven in the age of computers - he stands to leave

And like the wordless tribe that made us what we are

We ask for messages from the unknown world

We may never know. Tears, quick

Touch us all - and let us go.

 

Lyndon Walker