When You Speak Of Melancholy.... Poem by RIC BASTASA

when you begin to speak
about your melancholy
everyone around the table
listens,

someone takes a glass
and drinks
his red wine while the
other stares at the
wall behind you
and you mistake that
for something else

when you are in the middle
of this melancholy
no one asks you any question

they all have it too
but being attuned to this kind
of melancholy here and there
and getting tired of its
occurrence and recurrences
they do not bother anymore

they do not talk about it
for they just take it
as part of their life this
party, this silence in the
middle of your talks
that passes between the distances
that all people create and
all those spaces where silence
makes it nest, lays all the eggs
that hatch from time to time
and hovers over those melancholic
minds, without much
bother.