Nursery Rhyme Adversity Time

“Well bow wow wow whose dog art thou?”
asked young Jack nimble, young Jack quick.
“It doesn’t matter you’re Jack’s dog now!”
The thieves exclaimed, “That Jack is slick!”

The Ugly Duckling succumbed to rum
when Little Robin Redbreast found
out Thumbelina killed Tom Thumb
with help from Jack’s black stolen hound

He took the egg from Mother Goose!
While once he was my young son John,
that Jack is still out on the loose!
What do you do with rhymes gone wrong?

Ernie Harwell

I stood there like the house beside the road,
watching it pass—the voice of Michigan.
How many summers spent with words bestowed
to the ears and hearts of kids and working men?
Thank you for being family all these years:
for spending time in our trampled grass,
for conversation over brats and beers,
for giving the sport your love and gracious class.
But baseball lives on due to countless nights
of Tigers games announced by the tongue-tied boy
from Georgia. Baseball lives through Gehrig’s address,
through Mays’ impressive catch, through sounds and sights
of epic matches driven home in joy.
You will endure within the game. God bless.

The Leaf Dance

In the calm autumn the world watches
a leaf fall from the old birch,
dazzling the quiet crowd with his dance.
He fakes left and he fakes right,
eluding the unseen defensive line.
His agile frame moves like a boxer,
packing nothing but guts –SPLASH–
All eyes view the ripples on the lake
and the man on the dock behind the tree,
casting the line and the lure with ease.
The hook curves through the air and –hush–
The sad little leaf lands without a cheer.

Coles Creek

The long canoe met Coles Creek silent and strong.
Then SPLASH! The ripples swept the stillness away.
Seconds went by before the boy appeared
with an old, brown baseball, waterlogged and loved.

The man escaped through trees, obscured by the woods.
Holding the pistol tight, the man emerged
at a creek, the water cold and black and dead
and SPLASH! The gun sunk straight through the field of dreams.

Portage Lake Lift Bridge

In winter Heikki Lunta pounds the bridge.
The snow masks tall white towers and hides blue piers.
Hancock and Copper Harbor sleep to the north;
Marquette and Houghton hibernate to the south.
The ghost of the Copper Range Rail Road below,
the endless white of January above,
the heavy lift span sits at rest and in wait
to once again allow the ships to pass.

Immaturity Lost

We were climbing the snowy hills with our boards in hand.
The pine trees shrunk far beneath us.

And suddenly a friend shot down the slope.
One of us filmed it with his camera.

That was long ago. Today little of it remains,
Not the film, nor the spontaneous desires.

O my friend, where are they, where have they gone –
The stored memories, youthful crusades, asinine ideas,
I ask not out of sorrow, but in puzzlement.

Out-of-Body

I gaze at the trees of red and yellow hue
Reflected clearly by the portage lake
The hill behind the oaks appears in control
The sun above the crest is watching the time
Mosquitoes hover over lily pads
With lurking fish below in the calm blue
The portrait comes together with a face –
A boy canoeing, eyes toward the shoreline.