The Dakota
(Dedicated to the memory of John Lennon)

Your spirit inhabiting this dark entrance
Beckons us mortals, many and few. In shaken disbelief
We grope for understanding to sooth our grief.
From distant points and lives to you, unknown, we mass.
Still mourning, we mentally dramatize that night, long past,
That night he murdered our collective innocence.

He took you then, sinister, in haste.
Beneath these iron Herculean gates
You bled strawberries, horrific, to the pavement.
Bushwhacked by those shrill shots,
Your dreams, your music, your energy waned
Into the anguished weeping pools of those whose worlds you shaped.

What motivates followers to congregate, commune,
On this grey winter, wind-swept New York afternoon?
This stone portal is now half tourist attraction, half shrine.
For those compelled to witness the image, the vision, the divine,
The doorman, a courteous young priest,
Answers politely: "Yes, this is where he died."

In Central Park this mosaic emblem, epitaph, stills the air.
For meditation this parcel of Earth is reserved.
Without sound your music fills this preserve,
This garden sanctuary, like a chant from long ago --
A rallying cry for flower children, growing old,
Who now, searching, contemplate the word Imagine.

Randy Hurst

The Dakota (Dedicated to the memory of John Lennon)

The Dakota
(Dedicated to the memory of John Lennon)