Читать книгу Dead Man's Float - Jim Harrison - Страница 18

Reverse Prayer

I pray for Mandelstam hiding covered

with snow in a ditch. The Stalinists want to kill

him and finally succeed. I want him to escape

to Nebraska, please God. I pray for Lorca

that the assassin’s guns won’t work and he’ll

escape like a heron flying west to the Mediterranean

then across the ocean to Michigan where he might

dislike the snow but at least he’s alive.

He loved Cuba and Brazil for their music which

we don’t have much of here. Please God, save him.

I even pray for Keats that he won’t die

so young but get another thirty years or so

to write poems in Rome. He likes

sitting with my girlfriend on the Spanish

Steps. Can I trust him? Probably not

but I want more of his poems so I’ll overlook

his behavior. And of course Caravaggio

the king of painters must live longer,

God. Why create a great painter

then let him die early?