TOMAS MASARYK ON THE MIDWAY

Back when I was at the University

The Tomas Masaryk monument

Stood in a field by itself.
Though not a rider, Masaryk

Sat stiffly on a bored bronze horse.
Some nights, dismounting,

He’d walk down the Midway
To check in with the statues
Crowding Rockefeller Chapel.
He might chat with Zoroaster
Or listen to Athanasius tell jokes
Of surprising puerility.

As he passed her, St. Cecilia
Often hummed the opening bars
Of Jezu Kriste Scedre Kneze
Which he used to sing in Prague

When he was a boy and not an image.
There is a statue of a girl, a student,
Named Margaret Green. She stands
Next to the west nave entrance.
She gave him one night a prayer
I’d left carelessly behind
(The ambulatory was quiet. I went there

To think about ghosts but fell asleep.).
Passing my dorm on his way back
Masaryk left the prayer in my mailbox.
(No, I didn't see him leave it
But how else did it get there?)

ROCKEFELLER CHAPEL I

In Rockefeller Chapel some messiah
Had fallen asleep next to a pillar
Gathering shadows about him.
You and I were there for the music
Sung by a choir invisble in the loft.
I would gladly have looked at you
The whole time but, foolishly polite,
Stared at the altar or the windows.
When the music ended I did not say
"That man there -- the skinny one --
Was sent to save the world,
Or at least Hyde Park. I wonder;
What made him change his mind?"