 | | | | | | | | | | |
|
|
| |
For Mary Oishi --
And All Those Brave Ones
Of Sunday, 27 April 2003, Albuquerque
This was after you shaved your head,
you and the others, inch by inches,
breath by breath, to mourn the dead
and the horror of war. Each hair a tear.
Each fallen clump a country, a whole culture,
a room where someone lived, a river
flowing in the wind, leaves of broken branches.
Then I stepped onto the stage where
all around my feet hair--
black, brown, red, blond, curls, knots,
gray--lay, the colors of mown grass,
the limbs of soldiers and children,
the centuries-long prayers of abbots,
the spent petitions of mothers and nuns:
if it be possible let this cup pass!
That day I looked down, and the stage,
just inches above unknown graves, was Holy Ground.
Almost too shy to look, I slowly raised
my head to meet your naked head, and helpless
praise was the only song my throat found.
Your yellow cheeks, radiant as forsaken rage,
as tears of the sun, baptized my head, and
in your eyes, that Burning Bush blazed
a strange new peace. --Now, in case you're
someone too shy to look in a passing mirror,
I send this poem as promise, as witness.
Elaine Maria Upton
|
| |
| |
52 | |
| | |
| |
53 |
|
