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The Poetry Of.
Harold Lorin...............................................
Phoenix
Rome and Ho-ho-kum equally gone
Sucked down past foundation stones,
Reduced to shattered pots and fragments
Around which patient grasses grow.
Here In Phoenix at Ho-ho-kum,
Surely, as in Rome, an aging Caesar,
But unnamed, walked these stones
Already weary, whispering, already lost.
One hears breathing as on the Palatine.
Beyond this mound, the 'new' canals still bear
The ancient waters in their ancient beds.
Beyond the silences ascend
The flights from Phoenix, through New York,
Through time and stone, to Rome.
Saints
I sense the sadness of the Hermit Saints
Who fled to the desert caves,
Knowing one can't dismay the absent.
How easy it is to succor the lambs
How easy to gentle the birds.
Knowing their darkness is why they were Saints.
How sad I am I have never found
My way to the succoring desert.
February
Twilight is back in the city.
Brief, not yet lingering, but surely there.
The magic castles, Renaissance and Norman,
That rest on roofs, above the sleeping terraces,
Glow tentatively at just before four.
This is how I imagine the city will look,
But All the way down to the street,
When the Holy City descends.
