Grownups talked in the summer twilight.
They murmured tales of folk they'd known
who broke the Kansas sod, or mined
Wyoming coal. They told how timbers
splintered in a mine, mangling the man
and his mule. They spoke of a carpenter
who fell from a roof and over a cliff.
One's brother died in France of the flu,
spared the trenches of war by a virus.
Another's three year old was killed
when he fell from a standing car.
When full night came, they turned on lights
in the parlor, bid me say my prayers,
and sent me to bed in a darkened room.
   
 

I was born 355 days before Pearl Harbor, in Denver, Colorado. I took my secular education at the University of Colorado and the University of Denver. I took theological education at San Francisco Theological Seminary (Presbyterian). I have earned my living as a Presbyterian clergy person, raised feeder calves for three years, and as a technical writer and programmer. I retired eight years ago. I wrote a poem when I was just entering puberty. I liked it so much I've been doing it ever since. My web site (with all my poems) is at http://www.geocities.com/rikjorj/.

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