Radio Days
"...Tell me it's true,
we're everything we remember,
tell me memories never fail us, tell me
we take them with us, that I'll take you
with me, and you'll take me...'
--Richard Blanco, "Questioning my Cousin Elena"
Does anyone remember Hans Von Kaltenborn,
or "Moon Glow with Martin," besides me? H. V.,
pioneer radio newscaster, his distinctive brisk
staccato first heard when my father pulled the Lincoln
off the highway under sheltering trees. Rain,
pounding the roof of the car, a small child inside,
the Great War oceans away, and a father,
listening to the reassuring Kaltenborn voice
when all was safe within a car in a rainstorm.
Radio formed us: Dick Martin bringing WWL,
New Orleans, from the ballroom of the Roosevelt
Hotel, to a high school beachside house party--
his intimate modulations and midnight music,
eons before the advent of the big tube. Does
the power of the voice escape you?
Think HITLER.
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