IMOGENE’S NOTEBOOK
They Sit on Their Slat Benches
A poem
I.
They sit on their slat benches,
muscle mass much diminished,
in dew-damp shoes soaked through
to the arthritic digits,
speaking when spoken to
in consideration of abundance spent
and what ought to be,
hunched in discomfort, indignity bent,
seven decades of gravity:
slat benches hunched, collecting memories,
ironed-out arches in aching feet,
peeling off involuntarily,
supporting a generation who once marched en masse,
confirming one another’s suspicions,
hoping history will not repeat,
plotting their counter-offensive.
II.
Whippoorwill girls and Blue jay boys
oblivious to their hyper-attention
take turns nearby at the adventure wall,
playing games of their own invention,
dangle like spiders on rope-mesh nets,
engineered wood fiber in case they fall,
trading pronouncements of discoveries
in the polyethylene tunnels where they crawl.
Welcome hollers fill the air,
layered above chickadee chirps and choral crickets,
where once long ago
our own sandy soil flew
off the landing pad, adrenaline raging,
beneath self-absorbed, stainless-steel slides,
resilient jungle gyms,
impertinent seesaws,
trenching under link-chain swings,
wearing dusty rubber and canvas shoes.
III.
Fathered by men returning from war
who sat silently reading the news,
feeling fibers of long, shag strands through
white-cotton crew-socks their feet pressed into,
instilling principles by making us work,
demanding we speak only when spoken to,
bending our ears with weekly reflections
in a hard wooden pew
on an ever-present nagging that couldn’t be shaken
concerning what powers we answered to.
IV.
When the red threat came,
to keep dominos from falling,
they collected names,
entering those forced to play
into a high-stakes lottery, saying,
“Greater love has no one than this,”
with people of privilege removed,
while conscripting those whose
influence was unfortunately less.
Some back home taking up the ambivalent fight,
finding they could not look away
from flag-draped boxes arriving in waves,
marched for more civil and equal rights,
filling lungs with indignation,
airing grievances on the television,
speaking truth to power,
putting feet to friendly fire,
until the boys still breathing
were brought back home traumatized,
a grateful nation in their debt,
misreported then, misremembered now,
whose outcome none can ever forget.
Then, as monthly bills came due,
we settled into monotonous routines,
trusting no one under thirty-two.
V.
And still now we do cling,
done forever with relinquishing,
with so much work left to be done,
no thoughts of retiring,
bent on bending the world to our will,
saving the nation from the next generation
when everyone knows this guy’s not the one,
and those who refuse to choose will lose
down at the precinct in our local school,
where we vote in every election,
demanding that we be heard and listened to.
