Christopher Crawford
Rudolf Hrušínský, Czech Actor, 1920 - 1994
To happen upon the grave
of a man you know, a man
you feel you know. Hrušínský
I did not know that this is where
you lie now. This happiness is all
my own, that it might be enough
for a stranger to stop by
my own final home in the dirt one day
and say I like what you did, I like what you did,
I remember you.
Two graves up a headstone reads
THOSE WHO WERE LOVED SHALL
NEVER BE FORGOTTEN but your own
black marker holds a simple oval photo
of your bulldog face you used so well
in the films I love. My favourite,
Slavnosti Sněženek: Celebration
of the Snowdrops, in which you lived
among women
who used the harsh voices of seabirds
to break your silence
with their wishes. To break you
Hrušínský. So you ran to the men of the village,
to the bar, to the orchards, to the boar hunt
for the peace you never got in that old house.
I remember the boar you shot in the eye
for the village feast. I want to think you both
are resting now, speaking
with each other in a language beyond
the ones we use on earth. Free
from the bloody chase, from the gun, from
the screeching of unloved wives. Free
from all the senseless things we have to do
just because the sun rises
over the trees each morning.
for James Walling and Jack V. Booch