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
