MAPPAMUNDI I

When an inexpensive star fell on the Russian autobahn

The first time, the landscape sighed, the Russian trees'

Roots knotted in the soil, and passers-by felt

For their guns. Then, in Austria, another star fell, too near

The tracks, all trains at a dead standstill. Again,

In Paris, a boy, asleep at the wheel of a 1920's kiddie-car,

Was grazed in the Tuileries; and, in London, two housewives,

Downstairs on a double-decker Green Line bus, had stars

In their eyes. In Omaha, a banker's daughter found such a star

In her bed; and the captain of a streamlined steamship

In mid-Pacific wired: I HAVE A SHOWER OF STARS IN MY HEAD.