Thirty years ago for twenty years
I had known them well and loved them some,
I had known them well and loved them some,
And here they were again,
Gathered in the banquet room of Butler's Golf
To sing surprise as one of them turned eighty.
It was the third of March, the in-between
Of freeze and thaw, a time of mud and fog
In mountains to the east
Where a marriage ended, and half a family
Was lost to loyalty of blood, and here
They were, survivors of Monongahela mists,
Welcoming me back — this was, you see,
Western Pennsylvania:
Accordion and gnocchi and a chicken dance,
And sturdy matrons polkaing in pairs,
And some who could not sit for long, and some
Who could not stand, and some who hugged me
And held on with shining eyes,
All of us in our slow slide into the dark,
stunned and clinging briefly to each other as we go.
Gathered in the banquet room of Butler's Golf
To sing surprise as one of them turned eighty.
It was the third of March, the in-between
Of freeze and thaw, a time of mud and fog
In mountains to the east
Where a marriage ended, and half a family
Was lost to loyalty of blood, and here
They were, survivors of Monongahela mists,
Welcoming me back — this was, you see,
Western Pennsylvania:
Accordion and gnocchi and a chicken dance,
And sturdy matrons polkaing in pairs,
And some who could not sit for long, and some
Who could not stand, and some who hugged me
And held on with shining eyes,
All of us in our slow slide into the dark,
stunned and clinging briefly to each other as we go.
