The Hangman's Great Hands

And all that is this day. . .
         The boy with cap slung over what had been a face. ..

         Somehow the cop will sleep tonight, will make love to his
         wife…
         Anger won't help. I was born angry. Angry that my father was
         being burnt alive in the mills; Angry that none of us knew
         anything but filth, and poverty. Angry because I was that very
         one somebody was supposed To be fighting for
         Turn him over; take a good look at his face…
         Somebody is going to see that face for a long time.
         I wash his hands that in the brightness they will shine.
         We have a parent called the earth.
         To be these buds and trees; this tameless bird Within the
         ground; this season's act upon the fields of Man.
         To be equal to the littlest thing alive,
         While all the swarming stars move silent through The merest
         flower
         . .. but the fog of guns.
         The face with all the draining future left blank. . . Those smug
         saints, whether of church or Stalin, Can get off the back of
         my people, and stay off. Somebody is supposed to be fighting
         for somebody. . . And Lenin is terribly silent, terribly silent
         and dead.