A Lesson on Armistice Day.

In class today we read aloud
"In Flanders Fields"
eyes closed, imagining
bodies beneath poppies.

Every child in class
raised a hand to indicate
a family member
serving in the military.

My grandfather in Vietnam.
My Dad in Afghanistan.
They told me these things
with the delicate balance

of sorrow and patriotism, an image
in their minds of far off Belgium
"in Flanders fields
where poppies blow."

The afternoon before five months of cloudy weather.

Acorns and the temperature

have conspired to make barefoot

in my backyard impossible.

Migration

Bachelor buttons bloom

blue by the thousands

along the Pennsylvania turnpike.

They remind me of my grandmother

who lets them grow in driveway cracks

despite their status as a weed.

When she was a few years old

her immigrant parents moved from Massachusetts

for the factories of northern Ohio.

As she sped through Pennsylvania,

she looked out a window

at bachelor buttons by the thousands

seeds blown in a swirl of wind

toward a driveway somewhere

distant in the future.

It's about time we went into the studio to record this shit.

Some kid told me he'd seen a picture

of me standing on a countertop.

I smiled. You cannot believe everything

you see.

We should record an album together,

call it "Companionable Silence." Listeners

will find it strangely satisfying.

You see,

like a lot of people, I'm tired

of a lot of things like people who stand 

on countertops for comedic effect.

 

On days we learn to lose.

The more we tried to win,

the less likely it became.

That's the way it seemed

anyway. Don't get me wrong,

there were small victories

like "no one got hurt" and

"at least it didn't rain."

The days were beautiful,

those crisp early October

mornings of dewy grass,

mad sunlight in treetops

just beginning to scarlet.

I will always remember

the flight of the ball

over a goalkeeper

and into the side netting,

then the boy's outstretched arms

as he ran in celebration

into afternoon sun.

Sometimes that's got to be enough

a small victory

in a series of defeats.

The Graduate

The little boy from down the street stopped over this evening.

He stood as tall as my hip with eyes like a river at night.

I squatted down, extended my hand, and introduced myself.

We found out we've got the same name so smiled for a moment.

I asked him how old he was, guessing 4, and he bluntly stated 13.

You look young for 13.  Where do you go to school?

I can't remember the name of that place, but I just graduated.

He said this with such pride and sincerity, I had to believe him.  Congratulations.

What are you doing? he asked.  Well, I'm watering the tomatoes.

Why?  So they can grow, and we can eat them.  I would like to help,

he said with the seriousness of someone offering assistance in the wake of tragedy.

Of course, I told him, and we finished with the tomatoes, then went to the strawberries

which, with wide eyes, he told me he enjoys.  We then discussed the benefits of fruit.

When we finished he went home.  The next day I was getting ready to leave.

As I walked through the terrible heat of my front yard, the graduate raced over.

He stopped directly in front of me and took both of my hands in his own.

It was as if he had travelled a great distance to meet a long forgotten friend.

He turned the rivers of his eyes to mine and paused an earnest moment

before saying, We must water the flowers.

Elegy

We are on borrowed time,

and it's not often when we know

last days as they are happening.

We've known one another for 15 years now,

since the 3 for a dollar necktie sale

at the Cleveland Street Salvation Army

the summer before I started teaching.

I wanted to look professional.

You and your friends wanted to help.

They're gone, and now I've noticed

you're a bit frayed at the knot,

kind of like I feel when standardized test

week approaches. You know what I mean.

So, what have we got left my old friend?

a lecture on the causes of the Cold War?

some discussion of Kennedy conspiracies?,

perhaps one last reading of "Letter from

a Birmingham Jail."  All in all, and I hope

you'd agree, it's been a good run.

Whatever we've got left, let's make it count.