Were there today, munificence in heaven,
Silent roofs might well divert the god
who trains his sight on posts and lintels,
less concerned with all the agony inside.

The irony is in true wisdom's subtlety
that may reveal a sacrament
within a tyrant's spree.

The war came silently to Fortysecond Street,
and then a strange epiphany;
for as we watched the dancing words
in promenade above Times Square,
I saw a grown man cry.
It was a double irony:
he didn't know how much I needed that.

Star travelers
and goddesses,
and fighting men
might all do well to look beneath the rooftops
where the secret places lie,

where lovers bleed,
where victors drop their tears,
where heroes go to die.