Sunday Poem

DYING IN

dying on the grass
in front of the chancellor's building
for Charlie Schwartz's anti-weapons protest

brings back confused
memories of the wartime sixties
hitting the dirt before we realized

these were just wooden bullets
and then walking back through tear gas
to teach a class

lying here
and watching the neutral passers-by
scale the vertical asphalt

I feel neither
the old embarrassment at being
at right angles to most people

with brief-cases
nor, and this is the spooky part
that steam of comprehending anger

only the warm
smell of the grass beside my nose
saying, come back here every now and then

From Murmur of the Stars: Selected Shorter Poems (1994) by Peter Dale Scott

(Photo by zunguzungu. Banned from setting up an encampment, Occupy Cal uses helium-filled balloons to float tents above Sproul Plaza.)