The Admiral Of The Nineteen Stars Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

The Admiral of the Nineteen Stars
Well
Throughout the night
He at the table sat
With the other
Nocturnal guests
Babbling
Almost all time
But
Then
Intervals of
Small whispering.

Party of faces met
From centuries
Long
Long
In to the clouds and
Tunnels of time.
Party of faces!

The Rat of the Long Whiskers
He sate him
Next
To the Admiral of the Nineteen Stars
He spoke
Every now
And then
And sparingly.
Was that cunning of a Rat?

The Cat of the One Eye
He was a fighter
In the days of yore
But
One Eye stood
And served him:
At times
Behind the parlance table
He
Bent
As playing some card furtively.

A Squirrel in his Prime
Youth days
He had to found family
And/or descendants
One way or the other
Not so much on the
Conversation of the Table
Was he intent
More than in night
Itself
And descendants.

Then dressed in armor
A Knight of Noble Peerage
Full many battles
Lost or won
He knew and had
Experienced
Yet
More than these
More
Than on a battle-field
His Soul had felt,
Experienced
The anguish of the Life
That by now he by-passed
And
Viewed sardonically. -vi

By him
Sate the Watchmaker of the Town
A Watch of gold
He held and looked at
Constantly
In angst
For he had experienced
Loss of time
Fast work
Descent of centuries
Yet
Bypassed him
And now
In his ghostly cloud
He
Failed not to hold
Fistful in his fists
Cheeky slipping time
And century after
Century.


Then there sat
The Mayor of the Town
Wistfully
He looked at the Old Town
Into a globe he had
See
How it changed
All changes
But as soon as
The change is wrought
The vision original
Lost the brilliancy
Another ever-increase
Another style
Another living
From
The ever-increasing permutations and combinations
Had to be brought
But so are things
But so are days
But so sing nights
The centuries glide
Superb and proud
Vain fools!
They be just as Ixion
On the wheel condemned
Turning and
Turning.


All
All these faces
All round
The table stood
In flesh and blood
They were of other centuries
But now
Together gathered
At their will
And when they wanted
Centuries and age
Thought they had
Claimed them
But ah!
They cunning they
Had the last
Laugh
They claimed the
Centuries.
So we
So we
So all of us
We age
And
Time and age
Wreak their hands
In joy
Thinking that
They have had us.
But no!
We surface yet
Again and again
If
Not in flesh and bones
Here on earth
More elusive
More cunning
More powerful
All powerful indeed
And
Laugh jesting in the face of Death
And
Century after century
Condemned to glide
In round succession
As Ixion to the wheel.
We
We humans
All of us
Have power and Right
To be
These personages
Round
The Table of the Immortal
Winners of all cups
More cups and honor
Than in flesh and in blood
They would deck
Themselves
Courage! Take courage humans!
We too
Be these and these
Be us
Defying
At will and free
The centuries after centuries
Going round and
Round
As donkey round
The water-mill
Irresistible and
Irreversible.
We, no!
We, humans
No!