How we lost the Wandering Philosopher

After three days and three nights
He woke up.

Asked for water, thirsty for breath.
We gave him air, gave him water.

He smiled and said he needed a drink.
We tried reasoning with him

Said it was too early and first he must
Get well                 start walking                 get in shape.

But he waved his hand
And said: what there is, there is.

And pointing to his liver
He said he knew its ways more than anyone else

And promptly dozed off again.
Soon a doctor came on his rounds and banished us

To the faraway waiting room
Where we had parked for the night

From where you could see
The hill twinkling.

On the seventh day, we took him home
On the eleventh, he went to work

By the fourteenth, we forgot about him
Till he asked us, one day over the phone

If we knew the meaning of meaning.
This is when we gave up on him

And started looking after ourselves instead.
Apparently, he took the plunge seriously, into philosophy

Into time, into wisdom
And god knows where else he went next.

When we went to see him next
On the 51st day, he was not there.

His door was locked and neighbours said
He had taken his belongings as well

Also his diary, a ready to use toolkit
New address unknown.

And he disappeared from our lives
As soon as he had once appeared

Wearing a straw hat and a toothless smile
Asking if we knew Wittgenstein

And telling us stories of his interview
And how the job was fixed, in a quiet moment,

Revealing that the mouth of the universe was actually
Like a rose, pink and lush with meaning

And that he liked probing a little more.
He was looking for time, he said.

And that was when we realised
He was at heart a wanderer and not so much a friend

As a duty-bound discoverer of truth
That lived by street corners, huddled in winter blankets

Or basking for all to see, in summer sun
Like the headlines of our daily newspaper

A vagabond wandering in dim lit streets
Babbling about the end of the world

That has been postponed
By another season.