my back on the faces of fore-fathers,
whose plaques proclaim that "all men are born free and equal",
i step down from stone stairs,
past the plinths that rise as i fall,
and stare instead at the stooping slumps
of worn out folk.
Leslie George Katz just told me,
from beyond the grave,
and in letters of gold, no less
that "when the mind forgets, stone and bronze remember",
and i wonder if there will ever be
a memorial for the eternal unsheltered,
for those who are not preserved by anti-rust and washington wax
but for whom the rain leaks in;
whose stature buckles with every hour of lost sleep
and every un-insured casualty.
But with time's tides the bronze too turns green,
the stone corrodes,
the statues weather
and the monuments of flesh and bone
grow and decay in cycles
still they are
so absent from exhibits
entitled "folk art",
"the struggle for justice", and
"the american experience".
As i turn i see
these puddled droves,
that line the roads,
are real life american poor-traits.
