Warm Company

as he awaits the chimes
to ring in seven days
He’s reminded of beauty,
looking out over a long life
with tears of joy streaming
from the dream within his eyes, and
framing the afternoon
blue sky

He’s an Englishman, born
in the West End, he says.
Like to get back again, but
LA’s my home, and
when I was lost it took me in,
into the home
of the good people I’d met.
Been blessed, he says.
I used to sleep in an Oldsmobile,
before they put a roof o’er my head.

Today’s Palm Sunday,
I hear a patron say.
I went to church when I was a boy, says the Englishman.
I tell him I never went
He says he’s got sour memories.
No perhaps it was not for me, he says quietly, staring out and saying
still “but I believe.”

the sun rises majestic
softly penetrating
cafe stain-glass windows
afternoon beams; its quarter to three

and it lights the Sunday scene,
Made sacred by good friends
and warm company.