Eclipse

4/3/96

8:18pm

before I left
the darkened theater
you put one arm
aound my shoulders
and I turned my face
down
in the darkness
lifting the palm
of your hand
to my mouth

outside I turned
on the great steps
and watched
the darkness
flow upward
pouring away
from the brilliant sliver
that was
the moon

Numanities

Tell the stars,
tally,
number,
talent,
till. . .

You speak to me out of dreams
laughing as they fade to nonsense
and I sleep
wrapped in warmth
against your back;

I see your words
writ before my eyes
a poem in verses
by a boy of ten:

    A friend with every word
  A person of each letter
  Count them

  Countless
  Tell
  Numanities

Awake

Waking this morning
to my son's face
the light
on the wall outside
pink dawn
each color
more intense:
  a woman's auburn hair
  a sapphire car
the houses
of this gritty street
bathed as blessed--

I thought this must change
as the day mounted higher.
It did not.
I walked at noon
through brilliant blue,
two birds
in flight
above the walls
of stuccoed gold.

Winter

I just fell in love.
A picture of a boy with tousled blonde hair.
He is waxing a ski stuck in the snow
one boot placed forward.
He is bare-chested.
God, the shoulders, the arms,
the rippled abdomen,
the shadow of the trapezius,
The face, glinting,
shining open boy grin.

In the background: ropes,
rucksacks, evergreens
flecked with light.
He is Sgt. Joel S. Coffin,
Dartmouth, '44, training
at Camp Hale Colorado
for the 10th Mountain
Infantry. He will
die in battle in 1945.