INAUGURATION DAY
Yes, like thousands of joyful poets today
I’m in my study to write the first poem
of a new era, full of hope but nervous.
This snapshot of my Mom in a party hat
thumbtacked to a cork board on the wall
is a good place to recover my happiness.
It’s next to a ticket for a boat to Hautecombe,
a monastery in France on du Lac du Bourget
where I heard a nightingale in the woods.
Once my sisters sent me a lei from Hawaii
and here’s the bright card from Hawaiian Tropical Flowers.
This baby in a pink dress is my niece
almost grown up now, and this green postcard
shows Hemingway’s house in Key West
where I watched six toed cats climb palms.
And speaking of cats, here’s a bookmark
from the Grolier Book Shop in Cambridge
with three cats inside the large Grolier O
found in a book of poems by Tom Lux,
and under it, a strip of U.S. postage stamps,
Brooks, Hayden, Bishop, Plath and Roethke,
labeled FOREVER in the top left corner.
