October poem of the month

Acroterion
(In Europe)

They lean into your world

from a facade with a different sense

having been chiseled in an age

of fine distinct lines with serious mouths

and brooding eyes

and are the keepers of cobblestone,

narrowed and angled streets

like rivers and tributaries spreading

through and around cities.

And above us

on buildings adorned

and pastoral, admired and forgotten,

these heads of Europe, these angels

and bloody battle scenes;

their lives passing

like turned pages of history;

generations of stone discolored

and worn now rubbing shoulders

with the baker and pizza maker

and student who gives them no thought.

He-gave you world philosophy,

she-lost her head, they-redefined faith,

he- created symphonies

and poems alive forever;

sins remembered and discovered,

lands conquered and full of bone and blood,

science scorned and ships sailing the seas

and so it is easy to feel the solid steel

of a sword and march down the old streets

and feel the weight of time.

Steven Pelcman

Poetry Salzburg Review Austria