Two Poems

Note:  I rarely write poetry about current events, but there are always exceptions.  Havel was a Czech who led the revolt against the USSR and served as the first President of the freed republic from 1989 to 2003.  January 8, 2011, was the day of a mass shooting.  I could have picked, sadly enough, from a plethora of dates.

January 8, 2011:  Tucson, Arizona

What is the darkness in our hearts,

the knife we must hold at bay,

the tarnished eye, the gnawing mouth?

Hope and love are shared grace,

those supple common arts

which lift us all above the clay;

but anger feeds itself alone,

a demon which grows in the night,

a weighty self, as if of stone,

squeezing out each ounce of light,

setting Cain once more to run

along the paths of rage and wrath.

Vaclav Havel, 1936-2011

“I am constantly preparing for the last judgement,

for the highest court from which nothing can be hidden...”

--Vaclav Havel, To the Castle and Back

Dear V.H., surely you were not worried

about the ancient pleasures of our knees,

or eternal claims against our souls,

but more likely, the measures

we hold up to ourselves, that distance

between possibility and deed;

and your task was not ordinary,

you with Mandela and Walesa,

bequeathed a mission of proportions

beyond what is usually asked,

the courtesies of the grocery aisle,

or the duties of the voting booth:

not merely thought, but the body itself,

belief fleshed into commitment--

and thus, you are where you belong,

written into our pages

beyond any doubt or disavowal,

among the ranks of the acquitted.