Travel, Law and Life Considered

CONTRAST

Keyvan Tabari

Copyright Keyvan Tabari 2021. All Rights Reserved.

 

The crow flew away from the tree top

Before I could focus my phone’s lens.

I wanted the contrast of his black and the overcast sky.

Instead, there was a sign on the grey wall:

It said: Black Lives Matter.

Modest demand, I thought.

So was Amanda Gorman’s ambition:

She wanted to “Climb the Hill.”

Sixty years ago, Robert Frost,

Almost four times her age, aspired for Kennedy

The triumphalist vision of an Augustan age.

The squinting poet’s sight blurred in the glare of the snow,

The oracle of the omen

Foretelling the Bay of Pigs.

A changing time!

The Marines who planted the flag on Iwo Jima,

Now flew it in their retirement community of Sonoma.

 

(January 28, 2021)