What Is Found There

(for Joseph Shea)

after Velemir Khlebnikov

We settled in our ochre houndstooth seats
And stirred our drinks. We talked about the Good,
Damned cowardice, praised courage, and said we would

Have done much better to have lived when war
Was decent, when there was something to die for—
The future perfect, if not a lasting peace—

Or not to have been born. The high-speed train
Ran smooth as our reckonings. We sat upon
The observation deck beneath a green

Plexiglas bubble that dulled the glare and sheen
Of dusk into a botch of blacks and whites
As the train slid west and the last trace of light

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Edwin Frank

Hanging from the beam,
Slowing swaying (such the law),
Gaunt the shadow on your green,
Shenandoah!
The cut is on the crown
(Lo, John Brown),
And the stabs shall heal no more.

Hidden in the cap
Is the anguish none can draw;
So your future veils its face,
Shenandoah!
But the streaming beard is shown
(Weird John Brown),
The meteor of the war.

Herman Melville