ON THE CHARLES RIVER

On the Charles River
listening to Handel's Water Music
with a group of poets in sandals
eager to read out their dreams
and share their wounds
by delivered sailboats
prevailing here in a flotilla
filling in Eastern winds
visiting me in every age
from all over the universe,
there was the topical painter
and bard at the helm
William Blake
just waking up from Paradise
and the just St.- John Perse
at the stern by the docks,
Whitman from Manhattan
Emily Dickinson up from Amherst
both at a chance encounter
join in the variety of speech
as Paul Eluard from France
waves to the crowd
yet Chimako Tada reaches first
floating in from Japan,
those influenced by dada
Tristran Tzara or Hugo Ball
or by listening to a cantata
like Wislawa Szymborska's words
set to a call of stirring music,
sharing the boat is Petri, Csori
from Hungary celebrating
and deliberating with Rosetti
Zagajewski ,Vasco Popa
those who were called prolific
like the wise Italian Zanzotto,
Dylan Thomas, Celan ,Pasolini
with Gonzalez ,Vallejo, Lorca
vetting or outsmarting
their Spanish words
or reinventing language
for our martyred vanishing age
and those who in bereavement
summarize and analyze as critics
all these poets' achievements.