In Częstochowa

To Grazinka

 

Blue and gold, gold and blue.

The skies, her eyes, her hair.

Golden stairs she climbs , I stare…

 

Above machine by dialysis chair,

Pink and gold, brow’s young furrow

Beaded with sweat, scrubbing…

 

Once upon a time,

The river Warta

Ran thru Częstochowa

 

Cthere are things one remembers from childhood—

a picture of a Scotch Terrier (on a writing pad)

a yellow-haired girl sweeping a hearth (in a book)

 

or (in a photograph): a toddler pulling a violin out of a tin can—

more real than what we say “actually happened,”

and so it was that, reaching above the dialysis machine,

 

silence her accompanist, she,

rose and fell between moon and undertow,

foaming, turning in her banks, over rocks,

 

measure after measure, endlessly…

Listen you—you in the powder blue—

Cinderella, laughing,

 

bringing the waters of the Warta

here intact from Częstochowa,

Dei gratia nova,… I…

© 2003, 2017, 2024 Dan Goorevitch