Poems For Roberta Best

The Lady in Silver and Teddy’s Moon

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 7:45pm

    For Roberta

    Are you free to dance now

    free of all the houses

    you have restored

    free of unthinking people

    free to dance with Teddy

    see the shore

    of Eastport

    when the herring run again

    reflected in your collection

    of bracelets

    worn with pride

    in memory of Guatemala

    where you almost settled

    what a privilege

    for Phyllis and me

    to share soup and biscuits

    Polish sardines, brownies

    How you clung to the

    right to honor your brother

    against all intruders

    In politics, a radical

    reading the most difficult

    Kendall Merriam was born and raised in Rockland. He has a history degree from Gordon College and pursued graduate studies in military and maritime history at the University of Maine at Orono and Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Conn. He received grants to study historical research at Colonial Williamsburg and the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

    Merriam has been widely published, including in Katyn W Literaturze (Katyn in Literature), a Polish anthology of literary works about the WWII Katyn Forest Massacre by 120 international authors, including Czeslaw Milosz. Most of Merriam’s work has a definite muse – family, friends, and strangers – with life’s larger themes of work, love, loss and death.

    themes and policies

    of late you could

    not hear the sweet

    voices of your daughter

    and Jessica’s children

    we wonder, Phyllis and I

    who will call to us

    “Come in. The door is not locked”.

    Thinking it impossible

    that it would be anyone else

    without the gentle clash

    of your silver

     

     


    Teddy’s Moon

    How you would like to show him

    God’s giant jewel

    glowing and gleaming 

    directly over The Head of the Bay

    listening to impeccable music 

    dressed with impeccable style

    He smoked, it is true

    but only 20 percent of smokers

    die of cancer

    He died for U. S. Government sins

    asbestos 

    the Army did not protect him 

    no masks, no special clothing

    hazmats they call it now

    how cynical the Generals, Admirals were

    a long lead time to illness

    unlike Long Beach 

    where revolt was quashed 

    even to those frightened

    so now Roberta is alone

    by heart some of the time

    but now the family 

    fills in the chinks of hurt 

    Jim, Gaye, Jessica, Fiona, Naomi

    tonight this lonely, cold moon 

    gives cheer to those

    who venture out

    can anything such as this

    really exist, beautiful 

    can Teddy exist in another dimension

    someday he may come up from Snow’s Shipyard

    put on music and dance Roberta away