It is 42 years since I heard the bullets at Kent State and saw the blood on her asphalt altar. So much blood has been shed since then in our world that Allison's idealism seems a futile gesture of youth. I don't think I fully appreciated the Yevgeny Yevtushenko poem FLOWERS AND BULLETS dedicated to her until I read it today, two and a half years from my 70th birthday. The passage of time puts idealism in perspective, sadly.
"Let every apple orchard
blossom black"
FLOWERS & BULLETS
by
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
(translated by Anthony Kahn)
Of course:
Bullets don't like
people
who love flowers,
They're jealous ladies,
bullets,
short on kindness.
Allison Krause,
nineteen years old,
you're dead
for loving flowers.
When, thin and open
as the pulse
of conscience,
you put a flower in a
rifle's mouth
and said,
"Flowers are better
than bullets,"
that
was pure hope
speaking.
Give no flowers to a
state
that outlaws truth;
such states
reciprocate
with cynical, cruel
gifts,
and your gift, Allison
Krause,
was the bullet
that blasted the
flower.
Let every apple
orchard blossom
black,
black in mourning.
Ah, how the lilac
smells!
You're without
feeling.
Nothing, Nixon said it:
"You're a bum."
All the dead are
bums.
It's not their crime.
You lie in the grass,
a melting candy in
your mouth,
done with dressing in
new clothes,
done with books.
You used to be a
student.
You studied fine
arts.
But other arts exist,
of blood and
terror,
and headsmen with a
genius for the axe.
Who was Hitler?
A cubist of gas
chambers.
In the name of all
flowers
I curse your
works,
you architect of lies,
maestros of
murder!
Mothers of the world
whisper
"O God, God!"
and seers are afraid
to look ahead.
Death dances rock-
and-roll upon the
bones
of Vietnam,
Cambodia -
On what stage is it
booked to dance
tomorrow?
Rise up, Tokyo girls,
Roman boys,
take up your flowers
against the
common foe.
Blow the world's
dandelions up
into a blizzard!
Flowers, to war!
Punish the
punishers!
Tulip after tulip,
carnation after
carnation
rip out of your tidy
beds in anger,
choke every lying
throat
with earth and
root!
You, jasmine, clog
the spinning
blades of mine-layers.
Boldy,
block the cross-hair
sights,
drive your sting into
the lenses,
nettles!
Rise up, lily of the
Ganges,
lotus of the Nile,
stop the roaring props
of planes pregnant
with the death of
chidren!
Roses, don't be proud
to find yourselves
sold
at higher prices.
Nice as it is to touch a
tender cheek,
thrust a sharper thorn
a little deeper
into the fuel tanks
of bombers.
Of course:
Bullets are stronger
than flowers.
Flowers aren't enough
to overwhelm them.
Stems are too
fragile,
petals are poor
armor.
But a Vietnam girl of
Allison's age,
taking a gun in her
hands
is the armed flower
of the people's
wrath!
If even flowers rise,
then we've had
enough
of playing games
with history.
Young America,
tie up the killer's
hands.
Let there be an
escalation of truth
to overwhelm the
escalating lie
crushing people's
lives!
Flowers, make war!
Defend what's
beautiful!
Drown the city streets
and country roads
like the flood of an
army advancing
and in the ranks of
people and flowers
arise, murdered
Allison Krause,
Immortal of the age,
Thorn-Flower of
protest!
____________________________________________________
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