The Season of Memory

An Afternoon at The Grand Jetty

Women hold parasols/as a shade from/a diamond rain of sunlight/the air buzzes with particles of radiance/ this warm afternoon./Trees bend under/a high haze of leaves/and children recline/in their green shadows./People in their Sunday clothes/stroll over the lawn bleached with light/or watch boats/drifting on the river./The woman in a hoop skirt/ with a pet monkey/looks toward the blue energy/of the Seine./She gazes at reflections/of boats gliding -- sails pouring like milk./The hour is distilled/by a brush to its myriad facets/under a glow of cerulean blue.

My Father in 1994

The gaze is still clear/in the pale blue/of linear East Prussian eyes/that once pored over my arithmetic/from grades 3 through 9 --/ a chemist, he knew his math./His hair gone gray,/ he hums to old songs he finds /wandering through the cable channels./I look back and I'm riding with him through the Holland Tunnel/in the 50's. I recall when we emerged/into the galaxies of light/that are Manhattan, he would whistle "New York, New York', a wonderful town, /the Bronx is up and the Battery's down."/When we reached/my Grandmother's apartment in Queens,/a glass of Knickerbocker beer/would be waiting for him./This Christmas , he is lost/in the 'Dodger's Reader' I bought him,/remembering the 30's and 40's/in Ebbets Field./In his eyes, I see/strike outs and home run swings/and all the plays/that shook the stands.