For Richie

Frederick Bock

Is all we learn how to forget
When mounties tweet and skies close in
-And suddenly any dove is flown
Up the sheerest bluff that guards
The bluster of the heart's domain?

For, Richie, we're the childish now.
Not you. Whole fields of hyacinths
Won't turn your gray spring weather gay-
Yet with one bloom of wintry fear
So meadow-safe seems the dullest brain

That-look!-already past the care
With which our twisted silence slowed,
Bumper to bumper, for passage round
One small curb exorbitant
With sadness in the dancing rain,

We race up hills and speed along
S-curves-rejoicing in our spines
As every thorny wrench retrieves
The rosy world where tires may chance
To skid on tears past any pain.

Chase us, Richie!-claim the joy
Children shunted to porches wail for:
For if we break our bones so featly,
The clouds pour laughter down- what else?-
On your death's innocent terrain.