&

This is a world of books gone flat.

This is a Jew in a newspaper hat

that dances weeping down the ward

This is the time 

of the tragic man

These are the years and the walls and the door

This is me, my country, my people.

This is the time I forgot

that shows my missing watch, the empty hands

this is my absent love.

(Elizabeth Bishop & me)

~~~

&




(Courtesy of Tom)