A poem and photos by Ted Amsden

In The Cosmic Wind

 
           This morning,
                      this bluebell,
                             this bee-happy,
                                     this roadkill-dropped-into-the-organic-bin day,
  
                                     separating my trash
                                     facing the risen sun
  
                      in point of shoe
                                                   croc bound,
                      in point of mind
                                                   held to waste-separation tasks,
  
                      I feel okay.
  
               The pandemic does not roam freely inside the county fence.
  
               My pyramidal cedars crest the roofline.
               Soon they will appear in a search engine,
               the Cedars of Lebanon faint comparison.
               (May Bierut’s wounded and hurt curl their fists and thrust them 
               into the face of government incompetence!)
  
               Yes, 
                      this summer day
                             short shorn although hair not so much,
                             I trim the blue sail of morning, 
                             find a keen line into the wind,
                             and shout:
 
  
               Hello Mike One!
               Hello Mike Two!
               Hello David!
               Hello Eric!
  
               All men in the old school sense.
               All friends.
  
               Now together.
               Funeral images held by a single paper clip.
  
               Hello Mike Wallace! 
               Hello Mike Milne!
               Hello David Medland!
               Hello Eric Winter!
  
               What say you now,  Boys?
               Essence of self reborn or still in staging? 
               Are you really really dead?
               
               This is the roll call of dearly departed
               I shout into the silence of my isolation.
  
               Hello Boys! 
               Maybe I should turn y’all into fridge magnets!
  
  
               Mike One (the photographer) says, "Use studio portraits.”
               Mike Two (the reprobate) laughs like a nasty cherub.
               David (first bestie) shakes his head. He never knew me creatively.
               As for Eric, (the poet) irony becomes him best. Ever with a smirk.
  
               I shout to tell them I am breathing,
               have tasks before me,  feel a need to push back.
  
               The world      too hot,
                                     too crowded,
                                     too polluted.         
  
               “Have a big crap!” I shout at FlockaOne
               the bird formerly known as Blue Jay.
  
               “Shit yacht owners, consumer junkies, resource stealers, 
               climate deniers, colonialists, into one big steaming pile.
               Encourage angry socialists, 
                                     happy face progressives, 
                                            green shouting vegans,
                                                  - dung beetles all -
               to roll up our resources and recycle them for humanity.”
  
               But that's just an aside.
               Covid’s got my tongue.
               I will not repent.
  
               You hear me Boys?
               Just raising the morning flag.
               Soon enough the cosmic wind will carry me onward.
  
                   You have a safe day okay?