Guide - Vilma Ginzberg

[Larry Robinson]

Guide

His gaunt bent walking-stick frame
draped with hunter’s-plaid shirt
and scout’s awareness,
he holds her flaccid hand with his right,
her long-handled purse dangling from his left,
as he leads her 
like a father his slow but precious child
out of the car,
onto her unsteady feet,
up the curb,
along the walk to the blood lab.

As if to make up for her vacant face
her hesitant body
from which identity has long since escaped,
he says hello to the passing stranger
cordially but undeterred from his task:

preserving her emptied shell
on the altar of long-ago vows,
breathing hope onto the cool gray embers
of ancient fires,
remembering what she has forgot,
teaching us what love is.

	- Vilma Ginzberg
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