Our flesh
forgets the past
more than statues
of the molten dead
here on Boston Common
near revolutionary graves
still covered with snow
in late cold March
indifferent to the sparrows
soaring among musical elms
the earth battering wind
eager for a poet's open word.
In a knotted hatred
of war sinced childhood,
domestic or foreign,
my lonely initials
from my right hand
held your immigrant suitcase
by ash trees
in their cold shiver
like our own
at first light
near the train station
hearing questions
in broken English
anyone would ask
moonstruck by miles
between two shores
awakened by red eye
in lonely latitude
enveloped by darkness.
To outlast
fifty Springs
without the age
of being shackled
by knots of time
separated by pleasure
or hollowed out
from seasonal memory,
allows you
your quiet solitude
to write on
the barren tongues
of public defenders
soul winners
or ambulence chasers
you still wish
in this dispersed life
of portrait painters
ex expressionists
false revisionists
and visionaries
to explore
your huge crazy
zig zag warmth
of being human.
B.Z. NIDITCH is a poet, playwright, fiction writer and teacher. His work is widely published in journals and magazines throughout the world, including Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Art, The Literary Review, Denver Quarterly, Hawaii Review, Le Guepard (France), Kadmos (France), Prism International, Jejune (Czech Republic), Leopold Bloom (Budapest), Antioch Review, and Prairie Schooner, among others. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.
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