Donald Anthony Whidden and Twenty-six Thousand Days

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

The beach of long ago has gone.  Long gone

The sand and lacy waves are gone because

Of life and death.  This photo from the dawn

Of boys’, of brothers’, lives resists the laws

Of death and life, together, like the boys

Themselves since one is still alive.  Just one

Is still in strain of living.  Long gone toys

For brothers all together having fun

Are gone.  Canaveral lights like beach-time suns

Of seven decades gone have stripped away

The older brother.  Seven decades’ runs

Of moons and nights have gone with every day.

  The older one has gone and taken with

    Him much of Cape Canaveral’s noontime myth.

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