Poem 36: Oh, the Sun

I remember standing in a window-lined hallway in Bartlett Hall. Maybe even leaning my head in against the cool glass, staring out across the parking lots and athletic fields at the light cast from the falling sun. Oh, the sun. Nothing made me feel like a Floridian so much as being in Massachusetts at four o'clock in November. The gold orb we took for granted would set so early, before the workday was done, so you were always going home in darkness. Mine wasn't the only shadow cast in that hallway, I wasn't the only one leaning like a flower. I remember that clearly now.

Poem 13: Grandpa

It's obvious, isn't it,
to note how early it gets so dark
nowadays? I've been thinking about St. Louis.
We stood in the sun, our daughter
lolling in the grass, and I thought
about a park in St. Charles.
Grandpa, much younger, with a hat on.
Swings. How our daughter loves to swing.
Wasn't it Frost who said, Earth's the right place
for love? And a photograph:
Grandpa ready to ship off in the Navy,
next to a swing set, whisky bottle upended
over his mouth. Those old photographs.
A world so different. Grandpa:
I miss your scratchy face.