Petya’s head is still,
As if tenderly leaning
On the snow’s shoulder,
But his limbs twitching,
Killed in battle at sixteen.
It hardly seems fair that
We old men bury him.
Or Gaudier shot in the head in 1915,
That handsome young man,
And buried with him was all
The hieratic sculpture
He would have ever made.
All around the world,
In every clime and altitude,
Are unnumbered rooms
Left intact
By parents who
Cannot bear to make
A single change
To that sacred space,
When the clock stopped
And the silence began.

It is snowing and other children
Are catching snowflakes
On extended tongues,
As if at communion,
And inside, a dog circles
Nose to tail
Almost as a ritual,
Then settles on his blanket.
The young present flowers
To an old man
And sing on his name-day,
And the old man realizes
That once sung
The song has vanished for good.

In the right season
Men plant saplings
In endless rows,
Not for fruit but for beauty,
And the trees love
The fresh earth
Black and moist.

August 15th, 2007