Before a Common Soil
Poet Ifeanyi Menkiti offers these poems in memory of his longtime friend John Langstaff, and "in acknowledgement of the power of song to heal a divided sowrld." Menkiti, a philosophy professor at Wellesley Colelge, owns the Grolier Poetry Book Shop, a Harvard Square fixture, once frequented by poets T.S. Eliot, Marianne Moore and e.e. cummmings. This tribute to John Langstaff is a gift to all who knew him.
To take the glory
which belongs
to the mountain
and give the glory
back to the mountain
because the mountain
is very high
it is so very high;
a song I heard yesterday
as the sun
was going down
the song is still
in a corner
of my mind
the song, it will last
as long
as the mountains last
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