Floating through Iowa morning sky,
I remember childhood of space travel,
Allen Shepard, John Glenn, they’d made it,
For me in Iowa, East Side, I dreamed
Up that old Great Maple, wings for seed,
In South Dakota could such as these exist?
Yet, trees unlike South Dakota, grew on 47th street,
Sixty-years, Maple out of our house window,
Window bright, mother, you gave Iowa
Up to cancer, my brother Doug said nothing,
Coco, all his money beautiful Shetland
Died, Doug was five- years-old,
I launched model rockets into air
Four-hundred feet, cardboard, balsa wood
Painted yellow Explosion of parachute
Into our backyard, where lost boys
Conducted experiments with chemistry set,
Constructed Erector Set towers ; I never learned
To spell, so read The Adventures
Of Huckleberry Finn, old Jim, Becky Thatcher,
Then To Kill A Mockingbird the torment of Negros,
Kerry first real friend in seventh grade,
Taught me more about rockets, day
After summer day, such as I was
Eleven-years-old, then to seventh grade
Doug and I baby sat each other, summer’s
Reading, moving next to old Walker’s
House, rockets again, another Shetland
Grew as Doug grew, now he was eleven,
Remembered his snake collection, I entered
Advanced track school, none foresaw
Grinnell College family someday picked me
Up by boot straps, gave me scholarships
Became my shoulders from boot-straps
After drinking my way across Europe,
Fine wine, cheap beer, anything even green
Smoke, followed me, another day, English
Literature into great upheaval in each sum
I wanted to write poetry, never math even though
Mrs Christian gave me my only “F,”
That stuck, so I began to read so much Miss Emily.
Modern Poetry, in reverence , Science Fiction,
In Open class, girls thought Kerry,
Friend was odd, so I was odd and lonely, all but one
I was oh so smart we checked each other’s dreams
I found TS Eliot’s Ash Wednesday
I never knew how Kerry began to love
Me me as brother he never had, through High School
On to College, farther afterwards he picked me up,
As the friend he never found.
Finding dad, I had known dad longest,
My father was in college, I reported him to Social Workers,
He was hauled into court in California, blamed for every
Dollar he never paid for my pairs
Of shoes, so I took on paper-routes,
Earned every frozen cent, Doug took his
Paper money, spent it all on pop, on gum
Candy, fruit rings, toys, on a Roger’s Drum Kit envious
I went to meet dad first , and step-mom, wished
My visits with our dad would end until old age.
I ended knowing how dad treated her,
Our mother wept for her boys because of his cruelty,
Turned to acceptance, cancer grew in her, I took on burdens
I wept, my wife consoled me, my brother Doug never
Understood me, but she understood my marriage came first,
While I lit the last candle of her death
Loved her to end of radiation, chemo, calling everyday, everyday,
From South Dakota, my students found out, understood
My stricken moods; as student myself, my lessons
Softened–child-man, these were my lessons
Why I’d moved to California at age eighteen
In my dreams, found her when
I was sixty-two-years-old, or sixty-seven.
Our town of Hartford became
My resting place with my wife
My Marjorie, my pearl, my confidant
I wept for hours, for the lost boys
After days in ICU myself, came to know a Higher Power
Know why Kerry flew to Hawaiian Island,
Most of all my Marjorie, married longest after mother’s death
Dorothy, our mother, My Gift of God.
She never truly celebrated our 30th, dad’s long
Marriage, but our anniversaries began
With her Donald when she died, her death
Anniversary forgotten for her lost boys,
Her sons returned. Without her death nothing would have
Come together, many miles gone that old Maple,
Still growing in a new front yard; I Consoled dad
As he finely reasoned our love
Why I did what I had done, why I called attorneys
Abandoned him to jail when
I was just eleven, fear in my heart
Because he’d never sent child-support
Again lost boys, another parent
Thought we were gone; it was our mother
I Confessed my sin as he became his need at eighty-eight
I Always knew my own treason to him,
He bound me to truth, to never speak of this.
At 67, again I assumed his needs–every year
Like mother at 68 when she died, we brought him
To South Dakota in frozen January
To see our daughter; he was finally disabled
This mountain man, so unlike his sons,
Visited with Doug in California, tried to loved us both,
Doug never understanding his ending
Another loss for my mother’s beaten life,
Marilyn his second wife in death–
Lost his best friend, as Doug never
Understood our mother’s childhood
Beaten by foster parents; because dad’s wife
Rested in Sierra Nevada grave in meadow grass
Away from his dishevel home he’d never leave
Leave it just the way it was that day of her death.
He finally laid to rest his wife
While our mother laid by her her husband
Deep in her grave no one could ever leave her,
His youngest son filled with hate at divorce
Abandonment with education long out of reach
With release from mother’s death again
By cancer, I told father it was not his
Redemption from her beauty in her death,
But his sons who finally understood.
