My selection for tonight

[Daniel England]

If anyone is interested, I changed the last stanza a bit. If you want to cross out a couple of words, here it is for your edification.I don't want you to have to print out a whole new page, so you can save a little toner and paper.

Thanks 

We Gather Together to Ask

 

Saturday afternoon, art show behind me,

temperature about normal for June in LaCrosse.

Sitting on a bench, music from the bandstand.

High school kids seeing themselves as a cross

between Tower of Power and Beyonce.

Getting down, full of teenage bravado.

Riz personified.

 

Cruise boat passes, tour guide over the PA regales

tales of Indian tribes gathering at the mouths

of three rivers, battles fought by one group of white settlers

after another, boundary disputes with Minnesota,

lumber barons, bridge builders and bridge burners.

Some infamous, some forgotten.

All of them gone.

 

A barefoot girl chases giant bubbles

catches about one in ten.

Tangled brown hair flying with the breeze.

Non stop pursuit until

her dad runs out of dish soap.

 

Vapors from the BBQ truck,

insipid aromas of cotton candy cloy the air,

spiced dashes of tacos and street corn,

borne on the breeze headed down-river.

 

Ducks swim by as seventy thousand

cubic feet of water per second rips by

to mingle with the Gulf of Mexico

south of the Big Easy.

 

This symphony, brought as one

on this June Saturday, never

to be in concert again.

 

Dan Reed England