You sing with Schiller.
In the morning before the sun
comes to sing with you,
you sing, first an aria with no words
but telling of what happened last night.
All things came into your head,
like life and its difficult text.
You washed the dishes
and you thought of the impoverished
and you soaped the emptied
pots and rinsed them a number of time
like tasting the food again and again
and you think of all the good times
you missed in many places
you have never been to.
Like Paris, for instance,
where there, you remember
a friend's story of being robbed
and mugged and not forgetting
what has become of the remnant
of his joy.
Or in Los Angeles,
the city whose streets you walked
in sadness,
your green card on your pocket
but not knowing when the immigrants'
massing up would begin,
with the mayor declaring war
on terror and injustice
and the right to live
in self-respect. You had a dollar
in your pocket, that was all
that went with the right to live
in the great US.
How come this musician's beat
gets all the colored lights,
their hues speaking of those things
I cannot speak, their words beyond
my tongue?
It is early morning
in this city of my poet's life
and I cannot think of anything to write
except to scribble things coming into my head,
anything from coffee to this.
I need the kick,
the caffeine between lines
to think of what can be done to make
this murder of grief come about.
It is Schiller, and his singing with his hands
tells us of lives we lead, real or otherwise.
'It is only a matter of time,' he sings,
croons like the folk singer of old.
It is only a matter of time.
WPH/7 Jun 2014
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