A Single Layer

As promised, my poem to the writer's workshop: A Toast   (variations on “An Appeal” by Czeslaw Milosz) To you, O Church, to you I lift this glass of cheap grape juice. I lift it in irony, because I am deeply flawed. I lift it in sorrow, because so are you. And I lift it in brave, bold hope. To you, bored bride, wherever you are. In the creaking building, by the heartless fountain, sitting in the last bright light above the hazy port. I drink to you with no better question  than the far better poet asked some sixty years ago: “Whether you really think that this world is your home?” That the skin and bones are stretched as they ought around the mortal-heavy embers of your heart?  That the words and the songs are the first and the last and they signify nothing but the certainty of this hour? Probably you know very well the hot objection of injustice. That every tumor and scar, barrenness and hunger, mewling, limping life stat...

I promised a while ago to share something of the poem I brought to the writer's workshop last month. Beforehand, I should first share at least part of Czesław Miłosz's poem, "An Appeal." You will see why. You, my friends, wherever you are,  Whether you are grieving just now, or full of joy, To you I lift this cup of pungent wine As they often do in the land of France. From a landscape of cranes and canals,  Of tangled railway tracks and winter fog, In the smoke of black tobacco, I make my way Toward you and I ask you a question. Tell me, for once at least laying  Caution aside, and fear and guarded speech, Tell me, as you would in the middle of the night When we face only night, the ticking of a watch, The whistle of an express train, tell me Whether you really think that this world Is your home? That your internal planet That revolves red-hot, propelled by the current Of your warm blood, is really in harmony  With what surrounds you? Probably y...