THE DOCENT

The docent at the Shepherdstown Museum
has little time for pleasantries.

She walks with crutches but needs
no aids for her impartings of history.

She feeds them to us like a mother robin
bringing precious provender to her nestlings.

She makes us see the water wheels
whose heavy stones gristed grain,
helps us hearken to the cannon thunder
from the carnage at Antietam in 1862.

She believes we have come to learn
and she will see to it, God help her,
that we do.

Attempts at levity are not, I repeat,
are not appreciated.

ON THE TRAIN TO ATLANTIC CITY

AUGUST 1945

The war, my mother told me,
was over. I was five, almost six,
and girls were singing
mona lisa mona lisa men have
named you and laughing
and promising each other that
they would grab themselves
any good-looking soldier who
walked by them when they got
to the beach. I was looking
forward to building a sand
castle and wondering what it
would be like to jump into the waves
and if going to school would
be as much fun as my mother
had promised it would be.

UNVEILING

It was always my father who said
the grace before we ate. It never occurred
to me to ask why. It was the way
things were. What puzzled me,
though I never thought to ask,
was intenda juice. We never
drank it, I'd never seen it, but it
appeared in every mealtime prayer.

 I believed it was one of those
mysterious necessary words
we heard at church like salvation
and sanctify and atonement.

Years passed. A visiting preacher
came for a meal and, according
to protocol, Dad asked him
to say the blessing. He pronounced
his words precisely. He prayed:
And bless this food to its
intended use. At last I understood,
though, truth be told,
I preferred the mystery.

WHAT IF . . .

Put yourself some place in a story.
You can be the center of attention:
Captain Ahab, Cleopatra, Gatsby,
Samson, Hamlet, Goldilocks.
You choose.

However, you’ll have more freedom
and more fun if you select a minor character,
someone who stands at a discreet distance
yet close enought to take it all in,
the proverbial fly on the wall.
You’ll be able to move around
without attracting inconvenient curiosity.

Besides, it will be much safer.
You’ll have a chance for a happy ending.

ALL SAINTS

There are some few whose
goodness is almost visible
and palpable. They shine
in the dark. They exude.
They are rare as rubies.
They are as dangerous
as they are harmless.
They don't know it
which is essential.
I've beheld some,
known some.
So have you.
Name them.

ON A MONTANA MOUNTAIN

 Tilted meadow generously sprinkled with
 yellow fawn lilies each a miniature miracle
 mid-June morning crisp clean cool
 I am seated next to a hip high stack of firewood
 and visited by natives of the place
 chipmunks who stare and twitch atop the wood
 and stay to entertain for half an hour
 so long as I stay still

PHOTOGRAPH

There is a photograph taken
when I was four or so.
I’m sitting on my father’s shoulders.
He is standing in the huge garden
where he loved to go
on summer Saturday afternoons.

On his head is his standard issue
feedcap. Both of us are grinning
at the photographer, my mother.
Too young to think of winning
or losing or what it means to worry,
I am sitting on my father’s shoulders,

held firmly and securely by
by his strong arms. I know
I can not, will not, fall.
My trust is absolute.
But I am only four or so,
sitting on my father’s shoulders.