Classic Poem

When night falls here, I think of that other night
when the shadow fell once and for all and I
was cast out of the light into this endless gloom.
Twilight here calls forth from certain birds
a kind of mournful twitter, but silent tears from me
as I think of how it was that night in the city.
The nimble hours skittered, turning us all clumsy
and the simplest menial task onerous. Packing
was either a nightmare itself or one of those cruel jokes
you sometimes find in your worst dreams. Papers
hid and even after we'd found them refused to stay put.
We blamed ourselves for having wasted time
trying to talk it out and ourselves into understanding
what was going on, and not to impose
what we were feeling. I'd made lists of clothing, equipment . . .
But who had the composure? And pitiless time
nudged us along, forcing our minds to these cruel questions.
Or was it perhaps, a mercy? We managed to laugh
once or twice, as my wife found in some old trunk
odd pieces of clothing. " This might be
just the thing this season, the new Romanian mode . . ."
And just as abruptly our peal of laughter would catch
and tear into tears as she dropped the preposterous shepherd's cloak
and we held each other. On drill, like a legion,
the minutes passed, each of them bearing Caesar's blazon,
advancing by so much the terrible deadline.
It wasn't the fall of Troy, but what we all dread
as we read of the fall of Troy, whatever the scale
by which we figure grief, investing in those old figures
what our approximate hearts have learned to feel.