Song for Saul Bellow

Some distant sun shimmers past,
shines over, the silver stars left
detached.
You were an American, almost Chicago born
now a son of dirt, a typed out rabbi
knowing hard winters, lessons of ice.

Yet, you felt the cruel month April is
the dry mind God never waters,
Moses in America, burning bushes
like gas stations nearly ever corner,
knew bridgejumpers’ pain,
sweet women’s love and endless semesters.

Goodbye rain king. Greet the new
last day with your rye smile
and glinting eyes. Finish the novel
one hundred monkeys can’t complete.
Ask God for clouds this afternoon,
and please drop the wishing waters on us all.


06 April 2005