"in games that go on and on"

The Hour of Grace

I used to think it could be solved this way:
like people gathering in the station at midnight
for the last bus that will not come,
at first just a few, then more and more.
That was a chance to be close to one another,
to change everything, together
to start a new world.

But they disperse.
(The hour of grace has passed. It won’t
come again.) Each one will go his own way.
Each will be a domino again
with one side up, looking
for another piece to match it
in games that go on and on.

: Yehuda Amichai

[photo: storm cloud, 5/10/07]