Astronomy



Have I ever mentioned, Dad,

that once I had a passion

for Astronomy -

moons and planets, suns

and solar systems, galaxies,

the steady state theory,

the red shift, E=MC2, black holes,

galactic clusters, the speed

of light, the big bang,

time and space and eternity,

neutrinos, asteroids,

and blah, blah-blah, blah, blah.

I would love it today, too,

if I simply had the time to think

about it and, every now and then,

look up into the glorious night sky.





Harvard



Contemplating

the hallowed buildings

of Harvard waiting for the reading

to start, not looking

like a student nor

a faculty member either,

but trying to fit in when suddenly

it begins to rain.

I try this door then that (like a rat

in a maze) but I don't have a key;

cannot get into Harvard out

of the pouring rain

without a key.

Drenched, I have

a vision of Dad dead now all these

years, perking his head up

from under the hood

of his broken old ’56 Buick, staring

at me, saying finally,

the cigarette dangling from

the corner of his mouth --

Serves you right

for thinking you could hang round

a place like Harvard.





I didn’t join the Navy


I didn’t drop out of high school

and join the Navy like you did, Dad,

didn’t get trained in Gulfport,

Mississippi and Farragut, Idaho like you did.

I didn’t ship-out during two terrible wars,

or learn to fix trucks and cars, crawling around

on my belly in the cold grease and oil

of the garage floor, because you

wouldn’t have it that way. You

simply wouldn’t have it that way.

You always said, “Use your head, son,

not your hands. Don’t get stuck laboring

your whole life long like me.”

So I did what you told me to do, Dad,

went to college, found myself a clean

lily-white-collar office job and now

I’m using my head, oh sure I am, using my head

to think about marketing this product

and selling more of that product,

how to position this and how to position that.

But I must tell you, Dad, how absolutely,

completely inane and superficial

and unrewardingly banal this businessman’s

life is and how I wish I had done

a stint in the Navy and learned to fix cars

for a living like you did, Dad,

just like you.

As my avocation, I’ve been writing
poetry for so long that Methuselah
should be taking notice, but in
reality, time is simply doing its
thing streaking ahead blithely
pulling all of us along for the wild
ride whether we like it or not;
reminds me, I’ve published 15
chapbooks over the years, the last
one just came out about my Dad,
“methinks I see my father,” done in
cahoots with the talented Glenn
Cooper from Australia, and before
that was “when Patti would fall
asleep,” about my wife. Guess you
could say I’m a family man.

Michael Estabrook