Josef is sixteen today and as experienced
many years, he’s miles away—this time skiing,
another on a scouting trip, and when he was a little boy,
I’d be in St Petersburg attending a perennial event.
I’d go to Dostoevsky’s grave and light a candle,
tenting up a fir-branch frame to shield against the wind.
It was equally a vigil for the soul of Joseph,
twenty-six today in heaven, also often miles away.
Take Middlemarch, a
dog-eared narrative
that’s barely read today. We could throw it on the pyre
that Montag must ignite, to get on to the business
of better things to say. Joe’s a reader consummate:
of Čapek
plays and weekly features in Respect,
Canterbury Tales
and ‘Babi Leto, Babi Yar’—I dare say
he’ll return to these, to stoke the embers
in a different way. Meanwhile, here’s George Eliot.
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