William Heyen – Ⅸ

Subject Matter

 

 

 

 

I’ve got to say goodbye now, friends,

companions to this reverie of mine—

something else has been occurring, an upwelling,

a degradation of immense proportions so that you,

Mr. Tanimoto & Mrs. Aioyama, cannot be with me

suddenly to disappear or to ferry the stricken

toward green; so that you, bamboo pole, cannot see

with multitudinous eyes; nor you, fish, avoid

the pus plume; nor you, bewhiskered one under canvas,

sniff vegetation on that far shore. Hiroshima

recedes, the face of the moon in its river clogs with crude,

that romantic head loves its reflective power,

goes gelid in coagulated water.

As a poet predicted, “Universal darkness buries all.”

My poembooms deteriorate in tides of oil.