Circa ‘50s Wichita. Your mother, Gladys, going for her blue rinse,

Sunny jaunts, now-and-again treats, with cousins, siblings; and parents along but somehow invisible.

Good to mark it each year on the world’s calendar. But I celebrate it every day.

Burnished at first, then blemished— an earthly foreshadowing. Then bearded for a while.

Those many, sung and unsung, who gave themselves, often gave up their lives, to fight, in wars,

At precisely 9.25. When the moon, the first and most abundant one of the new year,

It was a wet signature. Full of emotion. Full of eroticism. Still wet, with sweat

Each time you breathe in the Earth’s air, the life-giving air, you breathe out a cocktail of

All the way. Your eyes, senses, sensibilities. Fill them

While countries, armies and ideologies battle, bees make honey. Butterflies float, and drink the nectar from gently open flowers.

Of my family name. One day, 150 years ago. In a Castle Garden where Jenny

The limpa from Scandinavia. The ciabatta, and the michetta from Italia, also known as Rosetta. The mantou from China.

The keys to the house, or car. The address of a restaurant. The grocery list. The name of a tree or bird or passing acquaintance.

Who wore a green plastic visor the color of a ginger ale bottle. Who had a raspy voice and Charles Coburn kind of face. A forever bachelor