The Pacification of Columbia

A patch of tan, then blood-warm roof-tile, and tan
patch and sky patch, as the jigsaw flung some mosque of Omar
to vaultless consummation and blue consumption,
exhalation of the sands of the desert to fire.
I got the message, one the puzzle never sent…
No destructive element emaciates
Columbia this May Day afternoon;
the thickened buildings look like buildings out
of Raphael, colossal classic, dungeon feudal;
horses, higher artistic types than their grooms,
forage Broadway’s median trees, as if
nature were liberated…the police
lean on the nervous, burnished hides, show they,
at least, have learned to meet and reason together.

May 1, 1968

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