To be human is of the earth, crumbling
~
Is humus. Is humility. Bleeding
~
We fall down. A dog licks our blood. Sometimes
~
We eat songbirds because we are hungry
~
A poet might refuse to speak after
~
Shelling. Another sings until they starve
~
Him, not because he plots against the state
~
Because he makes his own song. For the way
~
She loved his music, and the way he loved
~
The blue vein that rivered from her eyebrow
~
To her brain, the widower on the pier
~
Lifts his cello. Wrist becomes lips, tongue
~
Casals played Bach each morning to sanctify
~
The house, sanctify the mind. We are all
~
Ephemerals. Our blood so close to the
~
Blood of a tree. The cello too is pine
~
A body with ribs, belly. Below the
~
Winter bud each genus grows its own face
~
Vedran Smailovic walks Sarajevo
~
With a cello. He wears a tuxedo
~
Skeleton of the body is the music’s
~
Shape. I don’t think about bombs, about
~
Snipers. We have to remind ourselves we
~
Are human. I go to the ruined place