Friday, May 24, 2024

There Are Reasons

Occasionally I get Fig Newtons.

Not too often because they take

me back to what is only a memory

of when the dead in my life were

alive, when I was a boy,

when Mrs. Heinz – who didn’t 

have two dimes to rub together –

would have a box when Dad

and Mom would make a call,

park the car on this side of the wooden

bridge that crossed the stream 

to get to her house and life.

I should relish such memories,

the near resurrection of memory,

the dead nearly alive.  I have 

to say the longing for the dead

to rise again fills me with deep

sorrow, that melancholy joy 

for what has been not to be again

and say sometimes when I take 

a bite in a voice barely audible to me,

“This is the day the Lord has made.

Rejoice.”  And can barely swallow.


-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com


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