Analect 2.91x

1 May 2007. Mayday. Bird on the edge of a wire, a circle--may it be unbroken. Warsaw 1969, this time of year. Morning rain, pools of water along streets and squares, country people gathering, costumes--a Polish folk dance reworked in polyester, muscular farm girls, their thick blond braids, high cheekbones, wide Slavic faces. A red and white image, in pieces--each one a meter square--beginnings of a face--also wide and flat--assembled one by one, huge wall, aggregate of his visage--whom no one--absolutely no one--takes seriously. Let alone the cap, Smolny, the sealed train across the top of Germany, or even the speech, at the Finland Station, standing on top of an armored car... Leonard's poem--focusing instead on Kerensky--the man of hope, outwitted, left in the shadows... The locomotive of history moves on...