print previewback EDWARD MAYES
On Lines from Czesław Miłosz’s “Meaning”
If a thrush on a branch is not a sign
—None of the gurus you knew thought
Blitzkrieg when they awoke from their
Trances, although doesn’t the record of Ignacy Jan
Paderewski keep playing, September 1, 1939,
September 1, 1939, you were never able to put a stop to it?—Nor have you forgotten Constantine on
The Milvian Bridge across the Tiber, love
Locks now weighing it down, the evening he got
The high sign, and didn’t you remember the tesserae,
Seeing him clean shaven and mosaicked in Hagia Sophia?—If I had once thought the g in god was as
Silent as it is in sign, and if I thought only fakers
Would say feign instead of fake, or those
Numb with fear of the silent b, can’t I, by
Now, ignore the wrong turn, that passage to dying?