Classic Poem

Above
the darkness of a river upon
winter's icy sky
dreams the silhouette of the city:

This is my own! a flower,
a fruit, an animal by itself —

It does not recognize me
and never will. Still, it is my own
and my heart goes out to it
dumbly —

but eloquently in
my own breast for you whom I love
— and cannot express what
my love is, how it varies, though
I waste it —

It is
a river flowing through refuse
the dried sticks of weeds
and falling shell-ice lilac
from above as if with thoughts
of you —

This is my face and its moods
my moods, a riffled whiteness
shaken by the flow
that's constant in its swiftness
as a pool —

A Polack in
the stinging wind, her arms
wrapped to her breast
comes shambling near. To look
at what? downstream. It is
an old-world flavor: the poor
the unthrifty, passionately biased
by what errors of conviction —

Now a boy
is rolling a stout metal drum
up from below the river bank.
The woman and the boy, two
thievish figures, struggle with
the object . . . in this light!

And still
there is one leafless tree
just at the water's edge and —
my face
constant to you!