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Ordinary happiness
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He rocked on the porch and said sure,
a cold one would be cool in this heat.
It loosened him up, and he seemed grateful
for company. The dog at his feet,
her jaw on her paws, opened her eyes
from time to time:
* * *
In the Sixties I was full of fiery sympathies.
I missed the bus to Selma from The Quad,
the Freedom Riders had my sympathies,
but I didn't do enough.
I grew my hair
and sat in the middle of Fifth Avenue,
stopped the trolleys and ran from the police
who caught my friend and made him bleed,
left me shaking with adrenalin in the Towers,
but I didn't do enough.
I dressed in military surplus,
not the fashion of the time,
and listened to Woody Guthrie
and the apocalyptic Stones,
wore an SDS button on my peacoat,
argued with my father, cursed Chicago's mayor,
threw marshmallows at Hubert Humphrey,
wailed when King then another Kennedy were killed,
and raged against the Birchers,
but I didn't do enough.
I smoked herb, tried pills,
lived on pizza crusts and unsold hamburgers
bagged in the alley at closing time,
friends came back from Vietnam,
most with wounds that didn't show,
and I didn't do enough.
My girlfriend ironed her hair
and read my poetry
to her student-teaching class.
I loved her, but she graduated on time
and left me floundering on Oakland streets
as fires were set around me,
and still I didn't do enough.
And now again it feels like 1968.
I read the Times, I watch MSNBC,
I vent on facebook to my "friends except"—
we joke to keep our sanity.
We're all a living fiction now,
ever seen The Truman Show?
Monthly money shows up in the bank—
good program, FDR,
but I don't feel socially secure
in this country of money,
in this great country of money,
because it's not enough.
I drag a chair onto the grass
and watch the sun.
I fill a vase with zinnias.
I steam my garden vegetables.
I ride that old bike over these green hills,
smelling corn in tassel, marveling at sunsets,
sometimes even happy in a crisis.
At night above me, only black,
a shawl of sky
glittering with the promise of eternity.
Oh, brave and righteous people
in the streets, I know it's not enough.
Forgive me.
* * *
The bottle empty, he rocked on.
The dog yipped softly in a dream.
