Classic Poem

We have covered him with real flowers
and taken him from country to country.

It’s always the same journey —
people standing in the streets
silently saluting
as we carry him by.

And our hands tremble
under his weight,
our eyes are shocked
by the riddle of tongues
presenting the same paradox
in every country —
the whole human voice as background
shrilled to fever
about keeping the guns at bay.