Sunday, February 12, 2017

Grandfather Poem


One of a series of meditations on the arc of our lives.


John T. Wrinkle (1883 - 1973). Born in Missouri. Contracted polio at 3 years old, orphaned at 8.
Won a scholarship to MIT, graduating in 1906 with a degree in architecture.


If he thought at all
about social standing
and what it meant to
work at a desk
and wear clean suits
it was probably just
in the hazy way
that most of us stumble
through teen-age years

he wasn’t much for
horsing around
a teen-age boy
is a boy apart
when his body has
let him down
but he was bright
as bright could be

If he felt at all
out of place
in the Boulevards
of Copley Square
the halls of university
if he did he carried it
quietly
tweed wool suits
every picture a tie
a cane

always seated
pipe thin legs
shielded by trouser creases
modeling peace
modeling slow and steady work
laid out before us to
take and hold or not
a quiet place to start the ride
into our own tumultuous age.


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Sunday, February 5, 2017

Nineteen Forty-six

One of a series of meditations on the arc of our lives.


Ellen Wrinkle and Donald Kearns: Ellen's Senior Prom at American International College, Springfield, Massachusetts. 1946

She and he wrote letters
across miles of New England that—
viewed from here
are always gray
and white and black
looming trees by every house
narrow streets with
sputtering Fords—

the trees were green
in forty-six
the railroad between
Springfield and New Bedford
was soot-silver and
blue cloth seats
red signal lights
sun-lit hours
that stretched across
the Taunton Woods
past Providence and Boston
and roared toward infinite
days and months and
years and years ahead


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