If you were twenty-seven <br />and had done time for beating <br />our ex-wife and had <br />no dreams you remembered <br />in the morning, you might <br />lie on your bed and listen <br />to a mad canary sing <br />and think it all right to be <br />there every Saturday <br />ignoring your neighbors, the streets, <br />the signs that said join, <br />and the need to be helping. <br />You might build, as he did, <br />a network of golden ladders <br />so that the bird could roam <br />on all levels of the room; <br />you might paint the ceiling blue, <br />the floor green, and shade <br />the place you called the sun <br />so that things came softly to order <br />when the light came on. <br />He and the bird lived <br />in the fine weather of heaven; <br />they never aged, they <br />never tired or wanted <br />all through that war, <br />but when it was over <br />and the nation had been saved, <br />he knew they'd be hunted. <br />He knew, as you would too, <br />that he'd be laid off <br />for not being braver <br />and it would do no good <br />to show how he had taken <br />clothespins and cardboard <br />and made each step safe. <br />It would do no good <br />to have been one of the few <br />that climbed higher and higher <br />even in time of war, <br />for now there would be the poor <br />asking for their share, <br />and hurt men in uniforms, <br />and no one to believe <br />that heaven was really here.<br /><br />Philip Levine<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/heaven-9/
