Beggars

    That was a small lesson I learned on the journey.

    What is interesting and important happens mostly

    in secret, in places where there is no power. 

    Nothing much of lasting value ever happens at the

    head table, held together by familiar rhetoric.

    Those who already have power continue to glide

    along the familiar rut they have made for themselves.

Whatever we did had 

no possibility of permanence.

Michael Ondaatje

The Cat's Table

Knopf, 2011©