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September

ANOTHER SEPTEMBER

The groundsman was already burning leaves.

 

Each working day, I was paid to lead

other people’s children through the labyrinth

of language – received, standard. (For some,

it was the wrong one – language or labyrinth.

They had their own minotaurs at home,

on the streets). And each day, I would drive back

to smiles and books and weathered bricks and luck.

 

Watching the smoke drift, I was surprised

to be still there, trying to unload

the dice from some sense of duty –

and something not a little like love.

 

 

 

THE WAR ON TERROR

 

2001

Riding the F Train that August –

from Queens to Manhattan, Jamaica

Estates to Times Square – were all

of the hues and tongues and tribes and faiths.

Dead at our door, on our return,

wings stretched as if in flight,

lay a hen harrier, a female.

You chose to bury it gently

in the warm September earth.

Five thousand miles away, we watched

the towers fall. Later, building Babel

replaced the grace of humanity.

So many of the peoples of the earth

had gathered there. In the plaza’s fountain,

a bronze globe had turned perpetually. All

went to dust in a whirligig of fire.

2003

Atlantic waves broke on the empty sand.

Undeterred by us, a beetle crossed the dunes.

Almost due south was Casablanca.

…in all the towns in all the world

We followed the war by satellite. Graven

effigies fell. Truths unfurled like smoke, like spume.

In the estuary – where ships from Tyre

and Ostia Antica had hoved to –

at low tide, small crabs emerged, waving.

in all the gin joints in all the towns…

Wretches, saved, like you and me!

 

 

 

A BOOK OF HOURS

David Selzer By David Selzer0 Comments1 min read487 views

 

'Fevrier' from Les Tres Riche Heures du Duc De Berry
'Février' from Les Tres Riche Heures du Duc De Berry

 

July

We are rather formally attired

for country pursuits in the ducal woods;

August

me with a tie and you, I uncover,

with white suspenders and matching knickers.

September

Intimate stranger, forever touching

for your least kindness, forever surprising;

October

unpredictable as light, you bring

my heart from hiding again and again!

November

Earth warms. Ice melts. Seas rise. And nothing,

everything changes. Each day, we marvel.

December

Still flowering, for our wintry birthdays,

are fuchsias, geraniums, a rose.

January

As the tide turns, we watch snow drifting

landward over fields, woods, hilltops.

February

We turn for home – and, in the dark border

beneath the ivy, find the first snowdrop.

March

Our camellia flowers: hardy, exotic.

Palaces are stormed. Governments fall.

April

Somewhere the wind is always blowing.

We make our house tight against all weathers.

May

A solitary swift arrives, gliding,

banking, silent. Our daughter is born.

June

And verdant England is replete with bird song,

with that hushed stirring, that old, old promise.