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

Welcome to SoCalYankee, writings by Frank Kearns. Thanks for reading!

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My Father’s House

My Father’s House

The house of my memory

is a semi-rural farm house

with musty smells of

old wall paper and indoor plants.

You              retired

sitting at the dining room table

in pajamas and bathrobe

cigarettes and coffee

AM talk radio

KFWB Boston

daily pleasure

at the agonies of the traffic report.

The house of my dream

is a different house

on a narrow fishing-town street

before great grandmother’s knick-knacks became

a part of frozen memory.

You are a boy

entering the magic door

winding up the attic staircase

the wood a lighter brown with hints of red

the steps twisting and so narrow.

The photograph is yellowed.

You are so delicate in your uniform

your China Burma India Theater patch

jumping out from small shoulders.

Your eyes are feeling something,

seeing something beyond you and me.

In the attic

rubber band model planes

delicate balsa stringers

with tissue paper skin

light as the still air.

And a homemade short wave radio set.

You hear the news

open that high peak window

lean out

and shout to the neighborhood

Pearl Harbor has been attacked!