Grafitti at the Bruderholz

(Basel, Oct., 1998)

"Who could not, at one time

Have saved them from the gas"

A. Hecht

I too disliked it but still can't say just why

It bothered me so to see such a sign

Scribbled and scribbled on the inside wall

Of the Water Tower that day. The climb

Was steep, of course, was long, was made steeper

And longer by my little boy's squirming weight,

Who himself wouldn't climb but rather rode,

Pasted to my neck, breathing in my breath

As I staggered up the stairs. Upstairs, the sky

Blued into itself through smoke-gray dust, a mine-

Shaft's perspective, falling up into Fall

Which with each step sharpened and stilled the way Time

At the end drops off as death makes life deeper

And deeper yet until at last our wait

Ends us up somewhere else. I dragged us our load

Up as the walls' ink sang hymns to Horseman Death.

A solid world, just like stone, so it seems.

They pile up their masonry. Inside, their stairs

Scale freshly painted wall. The invitation

Seems clear enough. Hearts, arrows, once lovers scrawls,

Now hatred that oughtn't let itself be named

Speaks, shouting through its alphabets and tongues

Like these signs, whose Cyrillic proclaims the Cross

In Bosno-Serb with the legend "Arkhan,"

And suddenly the world's not so solid. Screams

Crashing up against fusillades, the squares

Cleansed of Muslims, not their blood. To build a nation,

Kill. Near the top, fresh zones of whited-out wall,

Then the sun shining, seemingly unashamed,

As a world of wind counterflooded the lungs.

My son looked out: worlds of profit, worlds of loss

Where I too would have failed him. This world limps on.

Southfields. 6.1. Posted with permission.