2.22.06
 
                      Washington's Birthday

 
Wan February light, shy, lingering.
Pale, opalescent... wistful-hopeful.
Over cemetery scrublands (one whole
remainder from the trees' last fling).

 
We shared the hobo bench, Mr. Brown
and I - near that paradigm for Everyman.
He was a kid once, too - perfect son
of somebody.  Some emblematic hand gone cold

 
(long gone).  You turned beneath the trees,
your whisper merging with their rustling - like
one of these tall Baldwins (crowning, exulting
on the ridge).  Spring rhymes with breeze.