Michael Palmer

Elegies for Sister Satan: Second Elegy

Sister, is it not time
for us to learn to speak
 
now that the infernal machines
have captured the breathing word?
 
Now that drones fill the sky
over Santiago de Chuco,
 
Central Park and Unter den Linden?
Is it finally too late
 
in this welcome winter rain
to cross the singing bridge
 
to that place where
memories of the future
 
bend like cypress limbs
under ancient snow? Where
 
the plague years melt away
and the shrill voices of children
 
explode from the mist
with nothing but pain
 
and praise to sing,
as if one and the same,
 
like two bodies joined
in a last embrace?
 
And these cypresses,
ministers of mourning,
 
how is it we applaud them
in their grace?
Other works by Michael Palmer...



Top