Years and Years
How many times have I told you
my interest in pop music paled
when Glenn Miller's plane vanished?
I don't know why — but it might
have something to do with my first
bike, a blue coaster-brake flyer.
Dec, 1944
Ceiling zero, freezing drizzle,
when a small british plane ferrying
Glenn Miller to Paris to celebrate
it's liberation never reached France.
I was seventeen, my brother in
the air force, my sister a WAVE.
Fall, 1941.
Glenn Miller had come to town — well
to Portland, only thirty miles away.
In Windham my bike pedal broke. I
was in the town my family settled.
As he drove me home Father told me
it was in seventeen thirty-eight
Summer, 2014
The only big band I saw was
Les Brown's Band of Renowned at the
Hollywood Canteen."Ignored the Beetles?"
All expressed despair. But as a
biologist I knew of God's infinite
and obvious affection for beetles.
Weighing Moonlight
On the ides of March my moon was full,
of course I'm sure that your moon was too
as my moon rose over Poland Spring Hill,
unrolling a ragged ribbon of reflected light
across the frozen pond into my window.
My living room a picture which need not
be taken, framed in memory more precise
than photography that detailes forgettable
bits and pieces of reality. The next night
the moon was hidden by low clouds, most
of the light piled high, leaving me to ask,
can its mass break through if ii's only sun's
reflection? Wondering, awake at three,
if you shared this moon-dream with me.
