Spree

[For Yosl Bergner] Tonight I see your blue protuberant eyes Following your angry wife, who sweeps away, With their perpetual look of mild surprise. ‘Nu, have another drink for luck,' you say I settle back to let your swift talk flow Freer with drink through the small hours till day Reddens the bottles in your studio, While, still unchecked, a rapid spate of words Explains some brush-technique I did not know. A Polish boy, you took cadaverous birds, Perched in a burnt-out Europe, for your text, Then came here, but kept sympathy towards Creatures with wings, for you chose angels next, Though different from those flaming ones that flew Into the Bible: yours are too perplexed Even to fly, waifs without work to do. Yudl reproved you once, in the Cassit: ‘Your angels are not Israelis, Jew.' No: but they are the images we meet In every mirror: so I understand Those helpless angels waiting in the street For somebody to take them by the hand. Still, hangovers won't await, so now we walk Past herons down the beach towards liquor land. There's not much left to talk of: but you talk, Waving both arms, eccentric, Yiddish, free, In your new home where tall winged creatures stalk Between the ancient mountains and the sea.