Requiem for poet / February 22, 2021

                The meadow is arching

                Downward toward the western banks of the river.

                The meadow wants a drink of cold, running water.

                If the river's top-sheet appears

                To run northward, it's due to the strength

                Of the southerlies as they move across the water.

                The weight and depth of the river runs

                From north to south and it’s always been that way.

                Well, that is, for as long as I can remember.

                Across the river looking eastward, the city's textile mills,

                And church steeples rise from the hillside, but have lessened

                Dramatically in their numbers, victims of the machinery's oil-soaked floors, or

                The welder's wayward spark, careless fires and icy closures. The light

                Remains translucent, transitional, and––  steely-grey.

                I'm impatient for sundown lest I begin singing like Ferlinghetti,

                "Afflicted with observation fever,"–– just another crazed, love-sick canary.

                Writ in Swansea, Massachusetts, 2009.

                Altered and re-published to this date on the occasion.