In Memory of Neeli Cherkovski - Katherine Hastings

[Larry Robinson]

In Memory of Neeli Cherkovski

(July 1, 1945 — March 19, 2024)

 

 

San Francisco,

Your great ones are dying —

Hirschman

Ferlinghetti

DiPrima

Cherkovski…

I knew them all

and the greats on the edges of your shore

Meltzer

McClure

Al Young…

 

San Francisco,

who do you have now

in your driverless cars

to take you to the moon?

 

San Francisco,

I knew them all.

They were your real

angels.

What is left of your

toga devoured by bits and bytes,

what is left of your

lovely wings!

 

Oh San Francisco,

I am coming home to you,

I am coming with my eyes

shut so I can see you,

my ears closed so I can

hear the chorus of angels.

 

San Francisco,

Listen!  The cups

of Caffe Trieste are growing cold,

are shaking in their saucers.

The wooden chairs

are moaning across the floor.

Who is sitting in your window,

San Francisco?  Your greats

are dying, the ones who loved you

with your thousand tongues,

your flowered busses,

your affordable rents.

 

San Francisco, the automatons have come for you

but the poets beat in your veins,

the poets place their mouths on yours

and their breath will be your breath.

 

Goddamn it, San Francisco,

Do something!  The great ones are dying.

Raise up that young woman or man

or neither or both

writing in your window and send them

out into the streets howling

all the prayers that will save you.

DiPrima asked you in the end

“What happened?”

The poets happened,

it was your golden age

until it was googled and amazoned

to the towers of greed

and isolation.

 

San Francisco,

you have always been the poet, the poem,

the pagan church on the hill.

Bless the dead poets,

remember their songs,

sing them in the bars and pool halls and bookstores

sing them like a mad woman

who is breaking open with the effort

to save her children,

her world.

 

Sweet dreams, Cherkovski.

May your spirit bring you to the greatest

poets corner in the blue blue sky

and may they welcome you

with Love

above

the City Lights.


             — Katherine Hastings








"Be joyful though you have considered all the facts."
    - Wendell Berry