For my Polish friends
The last flower exhibits terminal exuberance,
the fallen dead have been deserted by insects.
I think of the white ruins of the Cretaceous.
Chopin is using the radio. He left a month
before the failed uprising against Russia,
stayed in Paris, never returned home.
The birds sang as he practiced with fingers,
an amazing technique, composing for beauty
but what about everything else, like words?
His last public concert was a benefit in London
for Polish refugees. We passed the Fryderyk Chopin
museum in the Ostrogski Palace thirty years ago.
