PINK: Walking For the Cure

thinking of Ellen Vincent


1.

Remember that moment,
all of those women, survivors,
dressed in pink and roses, standing
on the stone steps for their photograph,
radiant, shimmering, an ecstasy, a riot,
as if at any moment they might burst
into star-ash rapture, an unspeakable
Pentecost!


2.

Last year we walked out
into the cold morning, a flood
of people fanning out from the city
and spilling into the harbor.
The faces of those returning
were careworn, tired, lost in memory,
and if transfigured by the walk
and the shimmering, the sun
glittering off the lake, cold
for the season, sails sagging
in the listless air.


3.

This year is harder.
There are so may things we
cannot say or do, so many things we
dare not say or do. This year
we walk in the sun, as if
we are alone and yet we are surrounded
by survivors, friends and lovers,
children and mothers, thousands,
each of us thoughtful, each of us
carrying some name, some memory,
some prayer, some fierce grip
on what we hold most precious,
that star-ash rapture!, a radiance we
cannot betray.