Let us drink to these final hours!  Let us empty our pens!

The ink has gone into the wine, the wine has flowed like ink,

let us soak the papers in the flood!

 

This is the way the gods want to be celebrated!  Let us amuse

the muses with some new words, some brilliant drunken

phrases we’d otherwise never use!

 

We are nearing the end of the race and we have prevailed!  Is

this not what the warriors feel when the enemy has fallen,

the mighty demon of sleep put down?

 

But this has been more than endurance!  I think of all the

private laughs in the night, the arguments with the ghosts of

my Christmasses past, present and future,

 

While my husband stayed curled up in a ball in our warm bed,

his nostalgia different to mine, his dreams less wild compared

to what they used to be.  No need to raise

 

My fist but I’ll grab those waiting laurels at the finish line, just

you wait and see!  There must be some decorative sash lying

around.  I wonder how it will look on me?

 

 

©  Ella Wagemakers, 11.32 Dutch time (=  5.32 EST in the US)