He Declaimed Poetry

“What sought they thus afar?”

The places that my father knew are gone —

Or worse.  They change to billboard ads of hype

Though he was looking farther up, upon

The realms that matter . . . to some archetype

About the death of beauty that he understood,

The beauty of a sister who all knew

Was striking as a star in Hollywood,

Whom cancer of the brain soon overthrew;

Or beauty of a sister made of love

Who baked a perfect lattice apple pie,

And, next, a third who lifted all above —

Soprano lifting us where angels fly.

  Above Canaveral my father saw

    Not planets only but the realm of awe.

~ Phillip Whidden