You made healing as you wanted us to make bread and poems. In your abrasive life of gifts, In the little ravine telling the life of the future When your science would be given to all, A broken smile. In the sun, speaking of the joining of nerve-endings, Make the wounds part of the well body. Make a healed life. You shouted,waving your hand with the last phalange Of the little finger missing, you whole man, Make it well! Make things accessible! He is a pollinating man. We are his seedlings. Marshak, I was your broken nerve-endings, You made your man-made bridges over the broken nerves. What did you do? Inspect potatoes,wait for passports, do your research, While the State Department lady was saying,"Let him swim," While the chief who had the power to allow your uses To move, a proper use of plastic, a bridge across broken nerves Stopped you there (and asked me to marry him). Saying to you, Marshak, full of creation as the time Went deeper into war, and you to death: The war will be over before your work is ready. |