IT'S NOT EASY

It's not easy
in a legacy
to combine history
with the literary elan
of a novel's plan
but Umberto Eco
and Doctorow
succeeded
in their celebrity span
like Osip Mandelstam
whose birthday
is this January
all in a shadow slipping
by the Neva
from their hour
are now gone
but not fallen
like pollen in the breeze
from a spring flower
near the birch and Elm trees
but alive in their words
discovering the red-winged
blackbird by river beds
or at the search and urging
of a swan who survives
by my cello playing
a dirge from memory
or this melody
of Saint-Saens.