Messianic
The night is warm,
the river is brimming over
with the light
of street lights and electric signs;
the wires of a star
shine in the mist;
the fine spring rain will fall
smelling of earth,
the sunshine
brighten the streets;
the sparrows will wheel about the shining twigs—
a sparrow flying into a budding tree
curves about a twig to alight on another.How far and wide
about the upper and the lower bay,
along the rivers and beside the sea,
how close and evenly
the street lamps shine:
you shall know the forests of your fathers
among these posts,
any you their deserts
upon these miles of pavement
whose mica
glistens in the sunlight and the lamplight,
in the heat of summer or the frost of winter,
wet with rain or white with snow.
Though your tribe is smallest and you are the least,
you shall speak, you shall drill, you shall war;
and, dying,
wheeled away so swiftly
you see the sun
no larger than the evening star,
their boots shall carry your blood—
its corpuscles
seeds
that will grow in the sandy lots,
between the cobblestones of alleys and on the pavement of
avenues.
Material from
POEMS 1918-1975: THE COMPLETE POEMS OF CHARLES REZNIKOFF Copyright © 1977
by Marie Syrkin Reznikoff and reprinted with the permission of Black Sparrow
Press.