Colonialism

Now Mrs. Payson’s house is being sold
She has gone to a home in the South

Also, Kelly’s father just died of cancer
And he drove to Keene for meditation group

The Greenes couldn’t sell their home
But they are renting it, so they moved to Lyme

My cousins’ dad’s girlfriend was distributing
Clothes out of her BMW, none to me

My cousins’ dad was attending to his small new dog
The one he sneaks into restaurants

We all took a hike up Gap Mountain
And one of my cousins’ kids deposited diarrhea on the trail

My other cousin’s wife is pregnant
And can’t eat the things she likes to eat

My Mom’s friend called from Connecticutt
About the 1959 Swarthmore Yearbook while we planned

The visit of my children to Fire Island

Dad was wearing his orange Ukrainian
Democratic Revolution tee shirt when we went swimming in Gilmore Pond

And me?

I just drove

Drove the winding roads of town and mountain
Shuffling through radio songs, looking for the right one

(Life is simply too much
And it’s far too long)