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LITERARY NOOK
Out of Schoolers and Summer Coolers
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Posted on May 17 2019
some are in and some are out of schoolers
at the beach or with some backyard foolers
summer coolers alcohol free and some not
beer bar stoolers sit and drink, sip, and chat
fresh lemon tea on ice when it is so hot
ice cream root beer floaters all getting fat
relaxing, texting, OMG even reading books!
says the rhyme, ‘no more teacher’s dirty looks’
many Miley Cyrus or Justin Beiber wannabe
uses the line, “don’t fan atan baba me”*
multi flavored sherbert ice cream coolers
melt down quick from waffle and sugar cones
lick it up fast there’s no time for droolers
no little ice cream drops on new cell phones
*Chamorro for “please don’t look bad at me.”
Always Give All Your Heart
Always give your whole heart, for love
is worth what you’ve been thinking of.
In love’s garden of heavenly delights
sample the varietals of the Finger Lakes.
With all your strength drive in the trellis stakes
to help grow the fruit for years of days and nights.
In love’s torrid and tangled vineyard taste,
when harvest comes and frost is on the vine,
the grape. Enjoy its flesh, its juice, its shape.
In vino veritas. Taste again. Drink deep the wine.
As you pluck love’s fruit in the chill of autumn
Love with all your heart from top to bottom.
He that wrote this knows full well what he lost.
It was well worth it, regardless the cost.
My hometown of Elmira, New York, was known in song as ‘The Gateway to the Finger Lakes.” I spent my high school summers (1963-1967) gallivanting around the glens, vineyards, shale beaches, and cool waters of three of the larger Finger Lakes in upstate New York.
Along the side of those three lakes—Cayuga, Seneca, and Keuka—were small dairy farms and vineyards. Today there are many more vineyards. We would swim in the round rock potholes of the small glens and jump from cliffs down into the potholes. Many an early romance developed along those lakes.
This is a response I wrote to W. B. Yeats’ poem Never Give All the Heart. Yeats’ ending couplet in that poem is: “He that made this knows all the cost/For he gave all his heart and lost.” I took a positive slant, “He that wrote this knows full well what he lost/ It was well worth it, regardless the cost.”
