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Poems reprinted from The Alembic, 2001 THE MARKET PLACE, PATZCUARO Flies hover around
the golden pyramids WHAT I WISH Mr. Sato slips into
conversation with me Mr. Sato shows me
how to prepare arrowroot jelly. |
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In memory of Pramoedya Ananta
Toer, One night they came All his books torched, More than a decade Yet he kept sneaking out leaves with How could he his pages now, In our smooth leather remember whose heads Behind masks Here we are consuming to death of green life that has lost private cells so silent see beyond striated walls or even try they no longer acknowledge. |
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REQUIEM
for Hilde Domin I can still hear your voice the room into disarray and then bringing everyone back who needed to speak her mind The walls put up with it. Other voices, other faces. That was how a woman sometimes got, Not many found their way So much to teach me, out of study with words swirling Your books unfold like eyes that Only then do you laugh The world only changes through disturbance. Sun slicing through clouds, fashioning new poems, that can renew a people for a time. Mother, you have left us |
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SCENE
CHANGE
In memory of Tanya Wood (1926-2004) Move over,
Saint Peter: too unreal — how about and the slotted white fence She’s coming, it’s only
fair grab the audience That’s life; that’s theatre. Open your gates, |
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AFTER
CZESLAW MILOSZ
nonetheless celebrate your singularity. you nonetheless found in your contradictions in the heart of war, your song crying out and creating. I met you only once, in Polish. Their native rhythms you chanted One does not live for self or country but a world. to witness, against a fractured
window |
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