‘you Are Slow Losing Your Teeth, ’ I Said To Myself. Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

‘You are slow losing your teeth, ’ I said to myself.
At fifty I was armed well although
I had removed even long teeth:
I still preserved them; dirty and yellow
And shrunk the roots were still
Pointing as they were when blood passed in them.
O! hear the night-wolf cries! There must be
Spells moving round disguised as ghosts
And mists disguised as shrouds but not
Among the streets:
But in the vineyards of the Rhineland where
The Rhine winds between the bosky acres and
The towns, buildings and palaces and
Shores peopled almost to the edge with
Shrubs and trees and with the animals that live in them.
Hear! Hear! Come in the nocturnal scene!
And you will hear what Goethe heard
When he opened his heart to the sweet scents
Of myrtle and the Muse’s secret perfumes:
There go I too to obtain as by right
The same experience and the same privilege.’
So said I and stopped and my teeth rattled.