I saw a man with a little boy in a backpack.
As he walked along he sang some nonsense song.
Though half-asleep, the child still seemed to smile.
The world’s disasters, I know, are here to stay.
Some farmers’ fields lie bleached for lack of rain.
Deadly tornadoes elsewhere, hurricanes.
Torture, rape, and war– and politicians.
I try to turn my mind to other things.
I put Ella Fitzgerald on my old-time record player.
Once, I could carry our children the way that man did.
His own small boy will see things that I won’t.
So will his father because he’s still so young.
I hope there’s some validity in prayer.
When grandchildren came I couldn’t be like him.
I couldn’t bear their weight, however slight.
Better than nothing, I told or read them stories.
A pacemaker’s doing its work inside my chest.
Some memories stay sweet in times of torment.
Has there ever been an untormented time?
I regret like anyone else some past behaviors.
The cardinal’s back again, so it must be spring.
He cheerfully whistles high on a pine downhill.
That tree’s the first thing here to catch the light.
It’s hardy, it seems, showing no withered limbs.
I take out both my hearing aids at night.
So the cardinal wakes my wife but no, not me.
The way her smile just beams, the way she haunts my dreams…
There’s a country singer I like named Alan Jackson.
He suffers from Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.
I shouldn’t speak as if I’ve got real grievance.
I paddle my kayak, I hike, I ride my bike.
For a man of 82 I’m doing fine.
There’s that brilliant bird and all this reminiscence.
My wife and I just ate a hardy breakfast.
I was a man who carried sons and daughters.
No, no, they can’t take that away from me.
So Ella sings, and for now at least she’s right.
I was a man like one I saw today.
A walk outside may be just what I need.
Out there it’s mud, it’s puddles, it’s pastel sky