936. NASSAU HALL

NASSAU HALL
I am in a place where even the gardeners
are complaining about their work. It's a hard deal -
to have to listen - short, sudden words : 'now, time,
not mine, won't, damn.' The black squirrel, an
ostensible beneficiary of their work, stares on,
watching the men. Not just another awful day, please.
-
I look on as well, straight ahead as
if I don't know. A wonderful star-sparrow
breaks through the light. I am smiling again.
-
Ajar, the door, and both the books are open.
We wish where Washington walked - quelling
that magnificent, mythological beast within us.
Revolutionary, after all, not just some foppish
ungenerous lad. I can't be all I want to be -
and that (I note) can make me sad.
-
Nassau Hall is not my home. It now dimly bespeaks
to me of other horrors - once, on these quaint old
Indian lands. We concentrate now on newer ideas
- of which the many I want to say 'Ideals' - carnage,
native blood, a violent usurpation, dispossession,
brookside assaults, murder, bounty, battle and death.
I can't not think, I think to myself.
-
I look on, straight ahead, as if I don't know.
A wonderful star-sparrow breaks through
the light. I am smiling again.