PAR.TISAN REVIEW
the dereliction of our youth, the sordid
childhood ripening to bitterness,
the aimless wandering from place to place
Ileeking·-what? You did not know, nor
1.
But scattered images remained, grew sharp
and deep, indelible: Wisconsin farmhouse,
barn wall sagging inward into emptiness,
Chicago midnights on the lakeshore, beauty
trampled on by hunger, no rest, no rest–
icy roads across the Alleghenies,
the cleu bright brittle air of winter
Rnd at night we hugged the walls of public buildings
but could not sleep.
Back to New York again:
there was warmth there was fo od there was time to think,
to merge the broken images, to synthesize
Mendota's midnight beauty and New York by day–
Haymarket and Union Square in I933 ...
Nothing has been lost. The photographic plates
grow clear in the solution-the worlds at war-
un forg etta bl e- ·
the image looms and casts
!l
huger image on the growing screen,
projection of our lives and struggles.
Comrades
here is my hand! Here's all o f me, my friends,
brothers in arms and fellow builders! \lVe
together through the long transition marching
will notch the trees along the way.
This May
has de eper meaning now than ever.
touch shoulders-ready?
Close your ranks,
There's our signal–
March!
EDWIN ROLFE
34
