in memoriam, Adam Zagajewski (1945- 2021)

Cool as the breeze, spring

comes and proves the proven

blank which was sorrow

a turbulent need, a healing.

Who am I kidding? To say “spring,”

and to say so on the front steps

just after noon in the bright cool of the day,

is a form of dissolution.

How have I arrived at that?

Your death is only two weeks old, sudden

and tender as the buds on the firethorn

returning and an old siren sound

carrying on the breeze

between two finches darting

through shattered powerlines,

cements a kind of comfort.

I accept this. These creosote

tears you must’ve seen on a Kraków

statue streaked with rain. What arrives next

is the marvellous phrase,

“half sea, half land”

(not yours but close) marvellous I mouth

before I digressed,

and then zoomed away to teach them, Adam,

your “To Go to Lvov.”