Maya Angelou

never met her or conspired to seek her out

for some small measure or evidence

of my existence

I first gazed on her on my black and white set

when she addressed her poem On the Pulse of Morning to the Nation during President Clintons First Inauguration

I was impressed this president had sought a poets reading

though I remembered Robert Frost reading at President Kennedys Inauguration

Maya reminds me always

of a poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko who in 1960 described a man like Hemingway

who he saw walk through the airport bar in Copenhagen to order drinks

who he later discovered was Hemingway

he did not rise or cross the bar or intrude on the man

he observed him

then thoughtfully committed his impressions of the man in a poem

whether he was inclined to approach Hemingway

he did not reveal

and whether he exercised his thoughts and imagination before or after he discovered the 

truth of his experience

he also did not say

when one admires art in a gallery or museum

confined in bindings or prowling a bar

that often cited suggestion

mounted on walls to be read or unfortunately uttered by a docent

                                                                                                            Please  Hands Off

ought to be respected

realised

one ought to possess a measure of their existence without trying to cop an artifice of one

as Maya did

                     as Ernest and Yevgeny

1405,  Thursday,  29  5. 14