The young, in their eagerness, flash

Adoring glances as they pass along

Hudson Street, seeking the flint to fire

The dry tinder of day-labor, to expose

Where the spoils are spirited. Slowly,

Others, atop heights, older and wiser

And moneyed, wish not for the Eternal Life

Or the Benediction or the accolades;

But want again to reel like adolescents

Left home alone in dark apartments atop

Storied Mannahatta. The Greeks have it

That Daedalus, the man with wings,

Alighted, in his flight, upon a peak

In the Mediterranean; and built a temple

To Apollo, the poet-god, on the summit.

We can still see the island of Crete

Rising in the distance; and we can read

Again of the anguish: How the man,

Unbound by place, could not escape the loss

Of his capricious son who flew too near

The sun, as boys are wont to do when

Given wings. How Daedalus tried, again

And again, to carve onto the temple door,

His child, darting, muscular, alive, still

Mischievous and eager and smiling.

A Roman poet paused to study the portal,

En route with Aeneas and the bloodied Trojans

To Rome and subsequent tyrannies. The flow

Of blood, like waters, along banks and shores,

Continues unabated: bones and limbs now

Strewn along streets, like West and Vesey,

And then carted away to unmarked mounds

On Staten Island where birds and rodents feast.

So, we turn away from grief: individuals

Towering over aped political display in May.

Eugene Schlanger (electronic mail, May 30, 2005)