Bucket List

- a list of things a person wants to achieve

or experience, as before reaching

a certain age or dying –

 

Paris in the spring time, sitting along the Seine

at a café, un café noir, s’il vous plait, and a croissant,

L’arc de Triompe and La Tour Eiffel, and a river cruise

down Le Seine through the heart of France, wineries

and little French villages, romance and leisure,

Burgandy and Bordeaux, a loaf of bread, and thou;

 

and then, across the channel to England, London

and Cambridge and on into Banbury, ancestral roots,

Banbury Cross and St. Mary’s parish, wandering the streets

and rolling fields, following John’s footsteps in British quaintness,

and to see a fine lady upon a white horse, rings on fingers

and bells on her toes … her own music, wherever she goes;

 

and home again, a long weekend in New York City,

by train, a Broadway musical or two, something classic

or newly redone, a carriage ride through central park,

and skating, perhaps, at Rockefeller Center, round

and round under the Christmas Tree, or Macy’s store,

America’s diversity in one place to feed my hungry palate;

 

and a cruise up the Alaskan coast, to the little inlet towns

and villages, the flights of eagles and escort of whales

and dolphins, lost in the wilds of this great frontier, misty

fjords, lush forests, gleaming walls of ice, legends untold,

the old West spirit still alive - my own spirit winding down

and so much to see, so much yet to live, so much still

undone now on the bucket list.