Asparagus and Carrot Soup

Well into the silence I count
Many more chairs than Thoreau's
lone and social three--
But even with asparagus and carrot soup,
I am not adverse to subtraction.

Rare the arrival of uninvited guests;
Rarer still my own welcoming mood--but I
dither and prepare.
Though this is not an age of impromptu calls,
I am not adverse to distraction.

I wear my Walden about me--an air of
Unsettled repose on brittle-boned feet--
approachable yet
Inaccessible--eating aspersion and
Cathartic gruel . . . as well this day be done.