A screenshot for “Duck and Cover” (1952), early cold war era propaganda film for children (U.S. Public Domain)
If you weren’t there
you can hardly imagine the beauty,
the exquisite peace of those hot summers
Sun as bright as a child’s heart
Trees thickly leaved and old as God
Heat rising off the nubby concrete
in mighty rainbow waves and life
moving in time to the music of paradise
Or, so it seemed to preschoolers at play
At the dead of noon
a stillness
Even the child sensed it
that transcendent moment,
nature in quiet meditation
no breeze
no sighs
no butterflies winging
children stopped playing
grown-ups stopped working
the Hudson Bay stilled its roiling
when suddenly
the beloved city choked on the swell of an air-raid siren ….
…. testing
just testing
just blowing a chill wind into
languid days of childhood dreaming
toddlers crying for toddler reasons
well-trained grade-school children
diving under oak desks for the required
The cold war: there was so much revealed by the singularity of that time. What crazy quirks do you remember or have you heard about from those you know who lived through it?
If you are comfortable, leave your work or a link to it in the comments section below. All shared pieces will be published on this site next Tuesday.
that clock ticking in time to our hearts beating
our muscles flexing, our topsy-turvy living of lives
while moon drips pewter mist below the hemispheres,
the stars are numberless and dependable and the
sun rises and sets and rises again, a hope-filled forever
tick tock, the heart,
no more beats in time cardiac arrest
what then, I wonder,
probably just another day,
a day like any other
with the moon spilling golden light across the galaxy,
the stars unaccountably brilliant, cut and polished gems
and you in the Light always ascending, forevermore radiant
“Like the sun, only when you set in the west can you rise in the east.” Rumi
1933 his mother spoke in fairy tales
as they put his dad to rest at St. Blaze,
the cemetery where all the Cruz’ lay .
1944 he killed a girl in Europe, though
she wasn’t the enemy, and in 1950 he
buried his first wife under a tract house in
Levittown, she wasn’t the enemy either .
in ’52 a son born, a kitten without claws,
was by 1960 well-nigh crushed by
the red raging bellicosity of his father a man is a man is a man, he’d preached, as
he made his way through life in armor plate
wind, migrating from other climes,
bruising itself back-handed against
my windowpane, reminding me of rain
and easy breathing and the bliss and
vigor of shorter days, the hint of chill
and autumn promises in one dry leaf
blithely flying in, coming to rest
I wrote that poem last year on a lovely day with the promise of fall in the air and the reminder of how much I love autumn and rainy weather, which don’t come together here. Nonetheless, both are energizing.
How does the wind and the promise of rain and crunchy leaves underfoot make you feel? Tell us in prose or poem. If you feel comfortable, leave your work or a link to it in the comments section. All works shared in response to this prompt will be featured on site next Tuesday.
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 