We’d sit awhile in easy chairs,
Just once a week, for several years,
And talk about a host of things --
Like life and art and apron strings,
Or work and play and attitude,
Companionship and solitude.

And as we’d talk, and listen too,
A little guy would walk right through
Our conversation and our mood.
Audacious! Yes, and yet not rude.
He’d make a speech (his words were good),
Or make a face we understood.

With time we came to realize
There were a number of these guys,
Each with a manner quite distinct.
One lied, one argued, one just winked.
One made us angry, one complained.
One looked so happy, one looked pained.

They’d never stay around at all.
We’d never know when they might call.
Like minor actors in a play
They’d enter, play, and walk away.
No long soliloquies or scenes,
They used the simplest of means.

We’d often wonder who they were,
And how they’d happen to occur.
They’d seem to fit exactly so
Into our busy ebb and flow.
We got to like them for themselves,
Like so many harmless, helpful elves.

When I think back upon my friend,
And of our talks, I comprehend
That we could not have got so far
Without that magic repertoire
Of little guys who know just when
To come a-calling now -- as then.