Cesky Lev (Czech Lion)

An old man, Shklovsky, in 'eighty-one, argued

that poets rarely last into their old age.

And if they do, they become ministers of small

republics. One hopes that Havel has a more

lasting legacy than proving Shklovsky right.

He was the sole cesky lev left in the land.

For all the mythos of the two-tailed Aslan

that feigns a ferocious rule fair and wide—a

Charles the Fourth, a Good King Wenceslas (looked out),

a Masaryk that never needed roar—but

ever staked a human-ness between the dread

regimes: Hapsburgs in their catholic birthright,

the Nazis in their nihil schtadt, the Marxists…

God, the Marxists, who bade the bloody day to

Brezhnev, who flushed it all away.  So Vaclav

rallied what he could—an isle of misfit toys—

to sign the future of their fate. No Dubcek

now to abdicate, nor suicidal flames;

on paper thin as samizdat he got the

names of levs like him and gently gave them in.

You’d think it wouldn’t make a dent—Helsinki

human rights accords are nothing if not weak.

Then tender all the mice to squeak and maybe

(as with Gandhi) the march is more than making

salt. Truth and love over lies and hate. Amen.

He wanted to say so in his plays. Alas,

they simpered into hidden deeps—along with

Hrabel’s bar-room breath, they reeled about in jest.

Theatre of the true absurd, here Havel

didn’t object. Truth and love over lies and…

Now we're suddenly without him. Lions in

this world are slim.  I guess the two tails are to

tell which way we’ve come from, or to sway us not

toward one side or the other. We’ve seen extremes

and know they’re not to die for. Live long, dear Lev.