karma

the room rang with laughter,
full bellied, visceral,
side splitting, aching laughter
that snorted and guffawed,
roared like an old engine
gushing with renewed life,
the prodigal return from
years of banishment whose cause
even history had forgotten.

somewhere in the middle
of this fearless fit of freedom
the spine shivered, this time,
with the thought of he who
keeps count, and the night
will lie awake in anticipation
of the tears that must fall tomorrow.
For that is the law of the land.

The inevitability of certain exiles
will hit as warmly as the first rays
of the autumn sun,and the butterfly
that flitted with charming uncertainty
over the windscreen this morning in
the unsuspectingly routine drive to work
will be the memory of the day,
worth remembering but lost
in the traffic of expected misery.