The Exile (Poem)

The Exile

for Frederic Chopin

(1810 - 1849)

Only shadows enter my tent

      as men pass between me and the sunset.

                        ~ Ezra Pound

1

The pride in Warsaw fails,

Its absence a kind of embarrassment —
like that first lesson on your childhood piano

            when the notes ran around
            in a panic
            heavy and smudged
            the mark of a fist unpleased.


This is the story of an evening in Poland.

            Your fingers slipped
            on a fragment of time.

            A permanent dream
            walked upside down
            in your hands.


2

Catherine's lover,
the former King Stanislaus,
imagines crown and scepter unbesieged.

But on his throne night lies

And in the pockets of his streets
soldiers shuffle death
like a deck of marked cards.


3

What does it matter
the smoke of a burning city
rises like your last audience

your cafes
conspire in a Russian tongue

men in your beloved country
touch their women darkly?


At just the right moment
your once-denied hands
will speak to the deaf
with their own gestures.

Mazurkas will lighten your moon-starved room.

Copyright Maureen E. Doallas. All Rights Reserved.