John's Lament

The glass of wine you drank from
Set on the long table,
Half-emptied,
As if you left suddenly in fear of
Your own friends.
The Party died, painfully.
You were one of the first to go.
Uncertainty betrayed you,  They
All mentioned it,
Behind your back.

The empty dusk-time shadows
Gravely hear your strange soliloquy,
Your spoken words yet echo,
On the cold floors
And the hallway walls.
They say that you walked in the garden,
That you seemed quite apart from yourself.

Couldn't you have told me the problems
That made you so remote from me?
Perhaps I could have dispelled them
With some joke
Or a laugh
Or a song.
But no, something about you made you truly alone.