PETER GIZZI

REVIVAL (Uddrag #2)

I never once thought of Alfred Deller
or Kathleen Ferrier singing Kindertotenlieder.
It’s good to be lost among pillars of grass.
I never once thought of My Last Duchess
or the Pines of Rome. Isn’t it great here
just now dying along with azaleas, trilliums,
myrtle, viburnums, daffodils, blue phlox?
It’s good to be a ghost in America,
light flooding in at this moment
of never coming back to the same person
who knew certain things, certain people,
shafts of life entering a kitchen
at the end of an age of never coming back now.
To hear reports on the radio,
something about speed, they say, accelerated history.
It’s good to share molecular chasm with a friend.
I never once reached for Heisenberg
or The Fall of the Roman Empire.