Summer Night Music

Beethoven’s Ode

            swells the summer night,

                        loud and forceful, stirring the soul;

and a night-bird sings

            outside our open window,

                        an obligato improvised, unrehearsed,

reminding us

            of the music

                        of an evening’s stillness.

All we are saying ...

So we sat on the lawn and chanted

“Hell no, we won’t go!” over and over

“Hell no, we won’t go!” but what did we know,

idealists in a world gone mad,

but kids, really, still green, individuals

following the crowds, protesting, fighting

“the man” and social injustice, civil rights,

and a war in Vietnam, our own fears

that our number would come up,

and we’d be Canada bound, exiling ourselves,

or worse, scarred by the ravages inflicted;

“make love, not war,” we sang out,

“give Peace a chance,” as we zoned out,

tuned out, dropped out, “far out,”

“power to the people,” pot and acid,

LSD, the SDS, tokin’ and smokin’

because our vision was set well above

the status quo, a white-collar job

and a home in Suburbia, a white picket

fence in the black and white America

we found ourselves living, sitting there

on the lawn in bell bottom jeans, sandals,

and a tie-dye T, chanting, “Hell no, we won’t

go; make love not war”;

                                         yet, we knew what

we saw, what we envisioned could be,

should be, and it’s 2020 – we should all

be dead, long past our 30^th birthdays,

the world coming to an end, then, -

50 years, 60 years, and we’re still sitting,

beaten down, beaten back, gassed and clubbed,

but not broken, just maybe too old for this shit.

And now we see among us younger faces,

what was once upon a time our own faces,

believing, envisioning, knowing, “Hell no,

it ain’t so,” decades later and youth rising up,

tuning in, standing up and sitting here with us,

power of the people, into the zone of rebellion,

rebelling against that same “man,” that same

status quo, that same black and white America

returning, picking up, perhaps, where we left off,

our lives but interrupted these years since then,

and together now, we cry again, cry still

for change, change late in coming, but come

it must, come it will in this new “age of Aquarius,

Jupiter aligned with Mars, Harmony and

Understanding, Sympathy and Trust abounding,”

idealists spanning the generations, ready to stand

together, chanting on the front lawn of America,

the front lawn of a world ready for change; we know

what we see, we know what we envision to be:

“give peace a chance. No more falsehoods

or derision, Golden living dreams of visions.

mystic crystal revelation.”

Remember Kindergarten

(To celebrate Sydney and 2020 high school graduates everywhere)

Remember kindergarten?

how scary it was? The little tables

and tiny chairs? That friendly face welcoming

you, herding you together? Perhaps

there were a few tears shed, yours

and your new friends, strangers then,

all of you equally scared yet eager,

eager to be in school, eager to be grown up,

on your own, well, sort of, a big kid now,

for a few hours. Oh, but the litany

of rules and responsibilities grew long

in the lengthening days of this being grown up,

and then matriculating into the first grade

with its neat little rows of desks, side by side,

one in front of the other, or grouped,

a forced socialization, and the beginning

of twelve more years of teachers directing you

to where they are, adulthood, all grown up,

afraid themselves, but eager for you to fly.

And so you flew, as youth does,

too light not to, your sights set

beyond the playground, beyond the classroom

toward greatness, all things possible,

no limits in the cloudless sky, blue

and bright, beckoning you aloft, to stretch, untethered,

taking with you the talents you took from the toy

box of kindergarten - the athletic fields and dance,

the stage and art room, music and scholarly pursuits -

creative youth set free in kindergarten;

eager faces, scared and unsure and set free

in the lengthening days of kindergarten

and the twelve years more stretching forward.

And clutching yellow pencils in awkward little hands

you carved your names, black letters askew,

and left your mark, left yourselves imprinted

on a world eager and scared, but sure,

a world waiting for you, in need of you,

a world remembering your name.

Today is your graduation. You’ve long outgrown

the tiny chairs and little tables,

the neat little rows, side by side, or grouped;

your sights are now set well beyond the playground,

well beyond the classroom, but still … remember?

Remember kindergarten, where it all began,

how scary it was, a few tears perhaps, this growing up,

and the lengthy list of rules and responsibilities,

but how eager you were, discovering that there were

no limits in the cloudless sky, bright and blue,

a cloudless sky beckoning you still, even now

beckoning you to stretch yourselves, untethered,

taking with you those talents you took

from the toy box of kindergarten, all those friends

and teachers and the adventures of those 13 years;

so always remember kindergarten, the fears and

the eagerness, the setting free, no limits

in the cloudless sky stretching before you -

remember kindergarten and fly away to a world

waiting for you, remembering your name.

The Ebb and Swell of Change

Just sitting here in silence, alone and unhurried

on this stretch of sand where the land

meets the sea this New Year’s Day,

watching the tides swell and ebb, swell

and ebb, fighting the moon’s pull;

a soft roar builds and a smooth hush

of sand caressed answers, steadfast.

Pale orb hanging in my nighttime sky, silent, too,

may I be the sand in this world’s ocean swell

and ebb, caressed, soothing and steadfast.