-October dawning-

From high-ground I saw the Sputnik

Arcing across a starlit October sky.

At my back, the ornate cast-iron south-

Facing gate of the Oak Grove Cemetery where

Lizzie Borden has a snazzy marker, set the northernmost

Edge of the neighborhood.

Further northward beyond the neutral-

Zone of the cemetery, lies a no-man's land

Of which almost nothing is known.

But to the west below the hill,

The red-bricked Housing Projects

Slugged their way into a spot of geography

And there, the Taunton River flowed southward

To Rhode Island Sound and the North Atlantic Ocean.

To the south by land, the second-city, the area called

the "Flint" was embraced as the line of demarcation

Ending the southend of my neighborhood.

It was the there where Chinese take-out was picked-

Up and delivered to the supper tables of the tenement houses,

And where we ate Coney Island hot dogs on the run.

It was southward where we rode our bikes

To the Strand Theater on Pleasant Street 

On Saturday afternoons and where,
Long before my time, the "Skeleton in Armor"

Was unearthed, deemed to be that of a Viking,

Later celebrated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Later still, the discovery was determined not to be

That of a Viking, but the remains of an early Spanish explorer.

Later still, forensic re-examination determined the find to be

The ceremonial dress of a high-ranking native American

Before the continent's invasion of the white-skinned European long coats.  

It's there, the examinations were called to an end.

Eastward, lay the two great fresh-water Watuppa Ponds
Enclosed by the dense woodlands of the sprawling

Reservation of the long-dispersed Wampanoag nation.

This is the lay of the land.

   

My father drove my Uncle Frank and me

To the northern high-ground in his Buick,

The black Roadmaster molded as beautifully

As sheetmetal could be for a common populace,

The heights a fitting stand for its stature.

The high-ground is getting us as close
To an unobstructed sky as the land would allow,

Leaving the city murmuring below in a blanket

Littered in yellow pinpricks of incandescent light.

We waited there over the churches and textile mills,

Over the steeples and smokestacks

High above what could not have otherwise been seen
Of the breadth of land and sky we called our home.

The Sputnik crossed in steady brightness

From the western sky to the eastern sky,

Slow to the eye and as silent as hypnosis.

The cemetery is laid to rest at our backs.

The Sputnik sinks eastward beyond the stillness.
The Roadmaster's engine is idling at the zenith of the planet

And the dashboard radio is rockin',––– but like a cradle.

Sam Cooke is singing: “You Send Me.”


Fall River, 10/04/57