Poet’s Corner

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The fountains are frozen
Dec. 1, 2018

By Amarylis Douglas,

 

The fountains are frozen. The Buddha has tears.

December first, National AIDS Day:

so many years back,

back in the throes of the epidemic,

every artist, every painter, every designer, every dancer,

every writer, ceased for the day, a day without art

in the memory of the so many who had died.

Handsome young men with heaven-touched eyes,

who walked up above the sidewalk.

 

Today, thirty years later, a new millennium.

Now there are only a few gatherings, memorials, stories.

 

But the sky remembers. Quietly,

from the east it sends a warm rose glow 

into the icy city river, 

then into the hills to calm the shivering firs.

All the city traffic is stopped. The sound has reduced

 to a hush. Everything has frozen. The sky is

smooth silver, painted by melancholy.

 

Just before dusk, a gang of scrappy crows

momentarily seizes the sky, screaming

“Remember their names.”