RUSSIAN LETTER
(In memory
Daniil Kharms 1905-1942)

You wrote me in Russian
from the Ural Mountains
to tell me
my poetry reminded her
of Daniil Kharms
dying in a prison asylum
from starvation
during the purple red siege
of a fiery risen Leningrad
you were the third person
in the fourth country
between two centuries
to tell me as well
that there is a connection
between us,
perhaps Daniil is now speaking
at this hour to me through others
even from his unmarked grave
without any riverbed of flowers
or ready laurels
nor grave monuments beside him
or any lamented bells be heard
yet at moments of the day
we will remember you,
Daniil Kharms,
though quoted verse
of a noted poet disarms us
we will be devoted
to fulfill your memory,
in small edited books
of knowledge,
Daniil who understood
that all poetry is a gift
like songbirds scattered
in the sacred wood,
for when any of our words
are outlawed by the state
or bodies burned in a war
amid a law's scared censorship
we are all harmed at our door,
giving out my maxim
"that poets need to be appreciated
in life's secret tears and laughter
and years ever after,"
we as yet have not learned.