Late May Conversation

Raspberries are ready,

for dessert tonight, a cobbler.

Atop the pear tree

cardinal couple commiserates

on scarcity of bugs, little ones

flown the nest and coming rain.

Fireworks at the lake this weekend.

Shall we go and take a blanket?

Perhaps dance at the concert

in Municipal Park to music

of a visiting polka band?

You can sport the vest I made,

I’ll wear the sundress you like.

We’ll dream by the watch fire

of local soldiers who came home

to their families safe and sound.

For Good Men To Do Nothing

For evil to triumph all that is necessary is for good men to do nothing...........Edmund Burke

He watched his students who had
little promise of a future, job market
bleak, building debt as they learned,
while fat cats in the counting house
smiled with glee at the returns.
He could see, it was just another bubble.

He'd been in Chicago for McGovern,
against the war in Vietnam, still felt
the scar over his ear from the cop's
club. Marched out of Lincoln Park
that cold, crisp night in '68 behind
Allen Ginsberg to the convention
center. Now he was the elder poet,
led hopeful soldiers down Wall Street,
faced another phalanx of dark blue clubs.

A Lifetime

A lifetime ago the blonde flower child/woman smiled at a grim faced
soldier as she placed a daisy in the muzzle of his upended rifle.
Today she clutched a folded flag from the casket of her grandson to her breast. .

Photograph by the late Bernie Boston circa 1967