MOSCOW'S MEASURE

By Kenneth Leslie

a this poem, a Canadian poet and editor, Kenneth Leslie of Nova Scotia, strives to convey his impressions of the Soviet Union after his recent visit. Leslie ts editor of the monthly New Christian, from which this poem is reprinted at the suggestion of a number of Pacific Tribune readers. eect GRIPFAST A famous youth with a marcel wave, Back in London from a visit to. Moscow, Was interviewed for a gossip column— So! You’ve been there! What did you make of it? “Utterly dreary! In a word, dull! And the women! Dear me! Utterly drab!”

Yet he admitted (they sometimes do)

He felt a bit guilty talking this way

For he had met “really fantastic kindness”

Sut of course he must call the shots as he found them,

Besides, he liked the jewelied stars

Of the very dead but undrab czars.

Moreover this is the yarn they need

To darn the holes in their cold war creed.

I chanced upon this dreary tale

The day I too had just returned

From that same city (was it the same?) Smallowing hard the pain of parting,

In my ears the soaring reeds

Of children singing, toppling towers

Of ancient madness, carolling

Of fresh days dawning, in my hands

And heart the warmth of gripfast friendship.

FORTY YEARS Not being one of these angry young men I’ve lived quite long enough to remember Forty years of the Revolution, Forty years of socialist building, Forty years of a new creation, All in the face of the twisted reluctance Of men to give birth to a new creation, Each year marked for death by strangling, Death by onslaught, death by treason, Death in diplomatic pouches, Forty years of hurt and hatred: Bullitt, Herbert Hoover, Hitler, Chamberlain and Ernest Bevin, Churchill, Eden and Lord Attlee, Mussolini, Salazar, Pacelli, Franco and the world Council of (Rockefeller) Churches— Volumes would not hold the names Of those sad abortionists Whining to cold war crescendo. Even the year of Stalingrad, When the world’s fate hung in balance And the Reds were hailed as saviours, Secretly still marked for murder, Yes, and today still marked... but wait...

THE SUN SPOKE New moons are rising on our small dark world Out of a patient Moscow worker’s home. His name is Stepan. He is a carpenter. He is no dream. I really saw this man. His wife and child were laughing by his side. This is the man whose little flashing moons Have shocked a mad world to a listening mood. From him new challenges have _ passed through doors

fLiong barred and bolted out of pity’s reach With sharp constraint that may not be denied. Believe my words, I sensed a radiance there More potent than the pride in their new moons,

Though in that pride ran clear the promises Of human comets cruising to the stars.

But more than stars and moons I felt the sun

There in that happy room, the very sun That Mayakovsky gave a cup of tea to. Out of their eyes the Sun drew judgment up And with their lips pronounced ‘it: I.am the source Of life. And life is love. I warmed the world For life. And life is Love. These are my tongue. My breath ig hot. They speak at my command. They give you my command: Love one

another!

My breath is short. My patience las an end.

Now school is out! Your time is up! Complete

In works of love! All this I heard him say Tenderly, sternly, in this family’s words. No copy here, but the original heat Of history and the overmastering will Of upwards of a billion human souls.

NINETEEN SEVENTEEN

In that black decade when the Nazi slime

Flooded their land and dragged their cities down

’T was likely dull enough before Rzhev

Where in a dug-out the writer Leland Stowe

Stopped by to take a meal with the Red Soldiers,

And these men tired out with the endless fighting

Were happy in their hour of sacrifice

To share their food and friendship with the stranger

And thanked him warmly for coming to visit them,

So that an unexpected communication

Flashed between them; and the puzzled scribe

Found a thing that was hard to get into his story

Without adding a colour to the moral spectrum.

For who shall name the qualities of the Red Army?

And who shall give an account of the nature of Leningrad

Except by pronouncing “Leningrad?” Who can describe

The hero cities except by calling their roll?

History yields one man to measure them by,

One name in the human story,

The carpenter of Nazareth,

Incendiary of love,

Whose love lit trains of fire

To burn all empires down,

Who fought and died for the creed

That history kept faith with

In 1917

NEW MAN

As I talked with a Moscow child,

Yes, there in the eyes of Boris

{ saw the Nazarene. He walks the streets.

In the beautiful subways, there he stands

And gives way to the aged and to the stranger.

He has broken, ’tis he who has broken the icon

And assisted God down off his throne

To make a man of him.

He is risen, ’tis true. He is risen to stay

On the earth, the seed and the sower,

The wheat and the reaper, the lover, the worker,

The student, the teacher, the giver, the taker

He is man and his world. And his way with his world

Is freedom, and sharing, and friendship and peace.

Time out of mind the money-mad did kill

The Carpenter. It was always the same old

story—

Murder him first on trumped-up treason’s hill,

Then spurn him after death with a pastard glory.

But this new builder is hard to handle. His rising now adds migh't to. right

As he tosses aloft a red-starred candle And opens an age of life and light.

CHALLENGE Brooding on my time in Moscow, Scarce believing it could happen That my hands had touched the dream, Found the flesh and blood fulfillment Of my life in Stepan’s power, In Varya’s peace, in Yuri’s promise, Here’s the challenge they sent with me To the great towns of the West:

MARCH New York, pride of the Western world, All you cities of power and pleasure, London, Paris, are your flags all furled? Move you, march to Moscow’s measure! | Scuff the mire of profit-lust =| Off the soles of your dragging feet! Left! March! This is a must. March to the rh'ythm of Moscow’s beat! Men of faith, believers all, Spend your hoarded moral treasure, Rouse you, break tradition’s thrall, Move you, march to Moscow’s measure Answer you all her trumpet call To shelter, to feed, to clothe, to find The lost that fail, the lame that fall, And lift the fallen and light the blind! March, march, into the light, Children pleading, time is fleeting, Forward now! The day grows bright Left! Left! where your heart is beating!

GE June 27, 1958 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAS