The Dates Of Demarcation
How many times
Can a Heart be broken
How many times
Can a resolve be tested
Is this the meaning
Of Life?
To be reminded
At the most unexpected
Time of
Pain and impermanence
How many times?
I hear the voices
Of those whose
Memories of
Lost innocence
Are etched with the
Precision of a Calendar
On the Stone of History:
Jack London remembered
The Boxer Rebellion
Jack Reed recalled more
Than Ten Days
Hemingway remembered
A hospital in Italy
Salinger talked of
Dresden’s fiery face
Our Grandparents
Think of the Seventh
Of December
While others recall
A day in Dallas
A balcony in Memphis
A hotel in LA
How many more times
How many more generations
Will be born into this
Impending loss?
How many more
Incidents of horror
Before the last
Vestige of innocence
Is carried away?
These questions
May seem on the surface
To be a plea
But
How many more times
How many more images
Of a woman
Her dress blown
In a fall among
Glass
Concrete
Steel
Fire?
(New York, New York 2002)
poem by Justice Putnam
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
No comments until now.