Richard Greene

In the Beginning

I was there

when you were squeezed

from your mother's womb,

coming into the world

not like a deity,

clean, calm and complete,

but as a man does,

red, wrinkled and vulnerable,

looking bewildered and indignant,

like a turtle deprived of its shell.

West Side Memories

We lived across from the planetarium,

mere yards from the sky,

while just down the street

was the el,

and still vivid

under the long gone girders,

a barbershop

with its candy stripe pole

and its carousel pony

astride which young clients sat,

at the center of the universe.

Daffodils

Oh daffodils, the daffodils 

beneath the trees

in our backyard,

everywhere in the neighborhood,

all over this patch of planet and more,

of poets long beloved,

but still worth a word or two,

so yellow, so yellow

they make one giddy,

oh daffodils, so daffadowndilly.

Pullman Memories

Riding a train

takes me back

to those boyhood summers

when I traveled alone

from New York to Chicago

starting from Grand Central Station

with a gentle jolt,

gathering momentum

past the vacant eyed apartments

of upper Manhattan,

wondering about the people

who lived inside,

then over to the river

where we hit full stride,

our wheels clicking

at a Dixieland pace,

the Hudson Valley scrolling by,

lake-wide river, stubs of old mountain,

the play of light in a cloud crowded sky,

until we turned off at Albany

into mile on mile of farms and woods,

imagining myself again

into the houses

along the right of way,

those who might live within

seeming not quite real,

as we no doubt to them,

two worlds

sliding by one another

each in its own continuum

of time and space.

Then in the dining car,

self-conscious but proud,

the center of attention

in that adult place,

and not long after

in my berth,

snug as a tent,

shaken down to sleep

by the jiggling of the train,

waking during the night

when we stopped

at some anonymous station,

pulling the window shade up a crack

to see if I could make out a sign

of where we were,

watching the moving figures

swathed in steam,

silhouetted against the platform lights.

Then it was morning

and the flat fields of Indiana

were wheeling by,

telephone poles

were riffling by

at a dizzy pace.

Like a horse

galloping back to its stable

at the end of the day,

we seemed to accelerate

as we drew near our destination.

I felt I had to hurry getting dressed

lest I would still be in my pajamas

when we reached Dearborn Station

where the train might be shunted off

before I emerged,

my father on the platform muttering,

"Where is that boy?"

But we slowed down

as we swam into the denser urban landscape

and instead of being caught unprepared

I waited impatiently

for that endless city

to end.

Watermelon Days

Here I am, a graybeard, eating watermelon

and remembering those summers

when I could count my age in single digits,

summers at the lake where my grandfather had a house

and all the cousins would assemble for dinner

around my grandmother's large table.

Though there's plenty of melon in the fridge

I find myself cutting close to the rind,

as I did in those days,

and there I am,

still that boy at seventy-three,

at the table with the tiffany lamp overhead

or descending the hill to the lake,

its remembered water, smooth and green,

lapping softly on the shore,

and the sound of mourning doves in counterpoint.

The Afterlife of Gods

What happens to gods

when people stop believing in them?

Do they expire,

or live out their eternities

in some special limbo

for the late divine?

Though we don’t recognize them

     by name,

some may live on

in the hearts of men,

a confined space, to be sure,

but widespread.

Mammon, of course.

Mars, Venus and Bacchus too.

But what of Baal, Ra, Zeus, Thor,

Quetzalcoatl,

and all the others?

Are their immortal remains

shrunken and shriveled

like sun-dried fruit,

or do they survive

in fine form

playing endless rounds of golf

in some other-worldly

retirement community?

Rowing

I like to row in evening

when dark trees

frame the still lake

and the water mirrors the sky,

to glide over the smooth surface,

stroking in slow rhythm

leaning back on the oars,

sending spirals spinning

like galaxies

into the reflected sky.

Where Are You Now Shirley Temple?

Where are you now Shirley Temple
with your upbeat songs
and sunny curls
and dimples that could wish the world’s cares away?
Not in some nursing home, I hope,
halo dimmed with blue rinse,
watching movies in your head
and smiling at cameras no longer there.

The world is coming undone,
warming at an ominous pace,
fish fast disappearing from the seas,
terrorism a plague.
Where are you Shirley Temple,
now when we need you most?

The Passing Parade

Children drift down our street,
all sizes and seasons,
mounted on parental chests, and backs
like rajahs in their howdahs,
chauffeured in buggies and strollers,
rolling past our window
on skateboards, scooters, bikes,
towing sleds and wagons,
toting books and backpacks,
bats and balls, hockey sticks,
toddling, swaggering, slouching, flouncing,
bouncing balls as they go by,
earphones affixed,
boom boxes for bands,
or babies’ cries and babbling,
fluting voices
and brassy ones,
some loudly in chorus,
some softly in pairs.
A parade,
a  pageant,
an opera,
a performance that lasts so long,
the protagonists age before your eyes.
Gradually, to be sure.
Can’t see it month to month
or sometimes even year to year,
but sooner or later you notice
that one after another
they’ve grown man high…
and then they stride offstage.

Children’s Story

A bee lights inside our window
this late October day.
How did it get in I wonder.
I didn’t hear it buzz by when I opened the door
see it out of the corner of my eye
feel a backwash from its wings.
But there it is on the windowpane.
What to do?
We can’t live with a bee,
can we?
No, my wife wouldn’t, even if I could.
(Wives are more practical.)
Were it a fly I’d swat it,
but a bee is too fine a creature for such a fate.
So I open the casement and blow
with all the force of my lungs
as if to extinguish candles on a cake
realizing, as the bee veers out
into the cold October air,
that it probably won’t last the night,
that my breath is death to that bee.
Will it go knowingly, frantically wanting to live,
or is that beyond the insect mind?
Perhaps it will be numbed by the cold
and slip away anesthetized.
It’s dark and getting colder now
and I wonder if the bee is already gone
or dying out there alone in the dark,
and I wish we could live with bees.
If this were a children’s story
the bee would share this house with us
and we’d look upon each other
complaisantly every day
and in the spring the bee would go forth
and resume its gathering ways.

On the Downhill Side

April's over

having, it seems, only just begun.

Once past the apex

we speed ever faster.

Ascending was slower

The landscape labored by.

Each time you rounded a curve

there was another just ahead

and you never saw the summit

much less the decline on the other side.

Then one day you notice you're on the downgrade.

The landscape unreels

at an accelerating pace.

You glimpse lowlands in the distance

from time to time

but the road

absorbed in its curves

never reveals its destination.

Down you go

wind pressed to your face,

applying the brakes

which no longer work the way they used to

and the last thing on your mind

is to shout whoopee.

Memories

I don't need more memories
yet they keep coming.
Nearly seventy years' accumulation stored away
in the attics, closets, cupboards of my mind,
but more arrive each day,
and the bedchambers too are full
of animated guests.
Granted, some don't stay,
and some stay only awhile
taking their leave considerately.
Others, however, remain,
stalking the halls year after year,
some congenial,
some unremarkable,
and some unwelcome lodgers who resist eviction.
And so, though the house is full
it keeps on filling
for it seems there's no end
to the memories it can hold.

I Was a Soldier Once

I was a soldier once, and young,
though I never fought in a war,
no buddy of mine died in one
and indeed I don’t remember
that any Americans fought in those years
or even if there was a war at the time.
I was a peacetime soldier,
drafted,
with no dreams of glory,
though I came to dream of waging war
on the military mind.
Oh, there were intelligent ones
but they took care to hide their intelligence.
It was OK to be smart,
but thoughtful, no,
nor inclined to see things in shades of grey.
Decisive was the ticket—
though it didn’t matter where that decisiveness led—
respectful of tradition and authority
and the primate hierarchies of rank.
So it was a time of disgruntled draftees
overeducated and disdainful
hating every minute of their military lives,
and I was one.
But I survived.

I See Myself Becoming Old

My closet is full of suits I don't wear anymore.

Nothing I need to wear them for.

There are days when I stay in my pajamas till noon.

I picture my heirs looking at my wardrobe one day

asking "Can you think of anyone who can use these

or should we give them to Goodwill?"

Or, "Would you like this tie as a remembrance of Dad?"

As I read the obits of the recently deceased,

which I took to doing a few years ago,

I compare their ages to mine.

Then there's the arthritis in my hands and feet.

My left foot aches when I walk

and I suffered a rupture in a time-worn tendon not long ago.

I have more trouble lifting things and getting around.

Don't jump over puddles anymore

for fear of the damage I might do coming down.

(No more kicking up heels for me.)

What will it be next,

the incipient cataracts?

My hearing isn't what it used to be.

I don't think I need a hearing aid yet,

though my daughter disagrees.

Or will it be something unforeseen

like that ill-fated tendon?

I see myself becoming old,

yet it's as if I were watching it happen to somebody else.

Birthday Poem for a Senior Citizen

Looking in an old file I find

a copy of my birth certificate

and notice that its says

"Born Alive, 4:27 PM"

and that moment comes to life:

afternoon light,

a hospital room,

my mother

in the full force of youth

(the certificate says "Age at last birthday 22"),

myself

kicking as infants do,

face still puffy from long immersion

still red from being squeezed into this world.

Will leaving be any easier?

Firefly Time

Fireflies tonight,
first time this year.
Looking out the window
I see them winking
where there was only darkness
       yesterday,
signals from a time
when fireflies foretold
freedom from school,
playing late in the dusk,
and the languid procession
of long summer days.

Last Words

I'm ready to cross the river now

on this rickety raft of bones

in this bag of sagging skin.

Let me swim.

All my life I've swum

beginning in the womb.

Now is no time

to start riding in boats.

Li Po

The poet Li Po,

the story goes,

trying to embrace the moon

while inebriated,

fell into a lake and drowned.

If this is so

the water would have splintered

as he struck it

into a multitude of moons.

What more fitting apotheosis

for a poet?

More poems by Richard Greene can be found at www.greenepage.net.  He welcomes feedback.  His email address is greeneplace@gmail.com