Later Sammy Silently Disappeared with His Airforce Father

Later Sammy Silently Disappeared with His Airforce Father

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

I want to return to the shadows,

and from the shadows to the flower.

Are you going, fragrance?

Go!

~ Lorca, “Return” (“Recodo”)

We sat beneath a Turk’s Cap shrub inside

The schoolyard fence.  We did not know that light

And shade are life.  We went there just to hide

From ordinary stuff, the sports, the blight

Of everything but myth.  We knew the love

That children know without some scarlet sex.

The boy and girl and I with sun above

Sucked tongue-drop nectar far removed from hex.

That Brian and that Alice, and, yes, I

Sucked sweetness in the mottled shade that sun

And leaves supplied (the petals, closed and sly),

While Sammy elsewhere hit a high homerun.

  He thought he was the hero, but we three

    Found peace inside our bloom and green marquee.

Phillp Whidden