AMERICAN FLAGS ON PORCHES
Happy Independence Day
Gramma Green, only 13,
looked over the ship's railing
her blue eyes
scanning the new land
The capped officers at Ellis Island
took away her beautiful
name Meryl and gave her
Minnie. Their crops were
failing back in Hungary
and she was glad to leave.
Her father with his long
mustache was a tyrant.
Mother Mishkit had
run away.
What's a woman's role
in America? To marry
and raise children.
Emmanuel, too, was from
Hungary, and three children
were born.
Was Gramma Green ever happy?
Poverty stalked them like
skinny hairless chickens. When her
litter of three began to grow
they gave their earnings to
"Ma,."
By then she stayed in the spare
room at Selma's, now 101, and
buried her head in a Bible.
A voice came to her and said
"Do not fear, Gramma Minnie.
Go outside on the front porch.
Look up in the sky."
A procession of camels rode across the sky.
"Camels?" she questioned and then laffed
out loud.
She catapulted from Cleveland Heights
onto the procession upon high.
Her white hair blew like sea waves
in the wind.
She knew she had done right
from the faltering farm
to the start of a small
new family where art
and culture and music
and writing would not
perish, like the Jews
in World War II.
*
COFFEE
Might we compare coffee to a song?
Georgia on My Mind, by the
late Ray Charles?
Or how about a symphony?
The First by Charles Ives in
its welter of confusion?
Ah, Sibelius, there's our man.
His sublime Violin Concerto
Finished only moments before
the first performance was a flop.
He revised it in 1905. But who
had the fingers and ear to play
the violin? A maestro from
beyond the deep, as Richard Strauss
led the Berlin Philharmonic.
Sip Starbucks Christmas Coffee
as we cherish every note. WE
are only here for a little while,
but music is forever.
*
Here's my favorite Fourth of July poem.
Click here.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Fourth of July poem
Dedicated to the Hulmeville Inn, Hulmeville, PA
I have come to this peaceful café
to rest my legs and drink from
the bottomless pot of coffee
the waitress has set before me.
I am jittery and can barely pour
the cream without creating a splash.
This is to be expected on a day like today,
a red white and blue day that
proclaims the coming of the holiday.
The waitress glides by.
A swan on a ripply pond.
She has people to serve
in the other room,
the dark room,
the room with the bar.
She stops by.
Does she want to talk?
I watch the smoothness
of her neck for a signal.
Her devotion is total,
like an abbess to her flock,
bound to her plates and soup bowls,
her pitchers of iced tea floating with lemon wheels.
Just the coffee, I tell her.
The cream goes in with a splash.
Against the wall, a legion of
tiny American flags
proclaim their clean, laundered loyalty –
to what? I am not sure –
bringing to mind
the music of Charles Ives
I have listened to in my bedroom long ago.
Where is he now, I wonder,
that daredevil cockatoo?
If only we had a stereo,
we could hear him play.
You’d know him anywhere,
his strut and clang of his marching band,
so unlike Sousa,
straying lavishly off course,
but full and sure,
stars and stripes, forever,
stepping into realms unheard of,
notes colliding with notes,
seas boundless and green,
Misted-over emeralds mined from zigzag depths
in colors yet unknown.
You’d like him, if you heard him,
But – careful! – he comes in fast –
Gone in a wink!
(I think at the time Chris Bursk said I was the daredevil cockatoo.)
I have come to this peaceful café
to rest my legs and drink from
the bottomless pot of coffee
the waitress has set before me.
I am jittery and can barely pour
the cream without creating a splash.
This is to be expected on a day like today,
a red white and blue day that
proclaims the coming of the holiday.
The waitress glides by.
A swan on a ripply pond.
She has people to serve
in the other room,
the dark room,
the room with the bar.
She stops by.
Does she want to talk?
I watch the smoothness
of her neck for a signal.
Her devotion is total,
like an abbess to her flock,
bound to her plates and soup bowls,
her pitchers of iced tea floating with lemon wheels.
Just the coffee, I tell her.
The cream goes in with a splash.
Against the wall, a legion of
tiny American flags
proclaim their clean, laundered loyalty –
to what? I am not sure –
bringing to mind
the music of Charles Ives
I have listened to in my bedroom long ago.
Where is he now, I wonder,
that daredevil cockatoo?
If only we had a stereo,
we could hear him play.
You’d know him anywhere,
his strut and clang of his marching band,
so unlike Sousa,
straying lavishly off course,
but full and sure,
stars and stripes, forever,
stepping into realms unheard of,
notes colliding with notes,
seas boundless and green,
Misted-over emeralds mined from zigzag depths
in colors yet unknown.
You’d like him, if you heard him,
But – careful! – he comes in fast –
Gone in a wink!
(I think at the time Chris Bursk said I was the daredevil cockatoo.)
Our 2019 Victory Garden. Huge cabbage leaves, where wasps fly over and seem to bite or are they mating over the cabbage leaves?
Tomatoes are doing well. Scott has picked a few and they ripen inside his house. He also picked one thin green pepper which I have in my fridge.
Thermometer. It was about 90 during the day.
I drove to Momz where I served meatballs and spaghetti. She loved it. She also ate a lot of fudge that Ina made for her.
I was not tempted but at night I longed to go to the DQ. I popped peanuts in my mouth instead.
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