JANUARY'S UNLIKENESS

Remember this Beat poet
in slow motion
with a radio
walking for a mile
along this ocean sand
when trees will not go
into exile being white
until winter's amnesty
packs up his close-packed gear
after a short run and hike
his flat feet exhausted
standing in a shower
of hot water
after talking a student out
of being a runaway
by hiding out
on Longfellow bridge
asking her to keep writing
her body of poems
telling her not to quit or stop
that it will take away
her gift of creativity
without reason
in gravity and time
or when she will surrender
to the dark side
of her Cambridge ancestors
as she tells me
one of her literary children
is an imaginary daughter
in her arbitrary imagery
of she who speaks to her freely
and dictates her lyrical words
that weighs on my memory,
telling her of Lazarus
who was in his life all new
as Jesus took to him
in a miracle of love and rescue
from an earlier captivity.