Summer, and Cicadas
for Paul
Summer, and the cicadas have gone mad,
singing out their ending lives with the deafening din
of a train that envisions the wreck. I, in my
wintering time have more enduring songs to sing
in this "sad, old world," as my grandmother
would say, walking in her farmhouse flower garden,
bearing the sorrow of a husband, and a cherished
daughter, gone too sudden and, too soon.
In the present place of peace and comfort I have
somehow, against all odds, managed to create,
a former life greets guests to an island retreat: "Welcome
to the Middle Ages" say candelabra, hundred-year-old
chairs and medieval tapestries, better hung in some
hushed and darkened cathedral There's no wicker here,
just a retro flicker from another era. My "Pro Clean"
guy, accustomed to this paradox, has laundered carpet
chosen feckless white, replaced, now, with sensible
green, gleaming clean from his expert efforts.
He's come again--"The usual?" he asks, eyes
holding mine a heartbeat too long. He's two years
divorced from a young wife who walked, a mother who
deplored dates with an older woman. How Cool!,
thought I, and he's met with my inquire, "Seeing her
yet?" No, the reply, as he turns on his heel, "But
we got along..." End of story? No, not quite.
Slow fade to a question made: "Are you looking
for a date? I'm charmed by confidence, his bold audacity,
the final tenacity when he heads for his truck,
"If you change your mind, give me a call." But, "MAY
I?" Happy, Sappy!, My end of the seesaw's weighty;
he's forty, I'm eighty. Still in the game? More or
less, I guess, but where does it end? I'll tell you,
my friend: "Red Rover, Red Rover," it's when
no one comes over.
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