Bus Poem

Losstalgia

Macias, the old, dead poet
wills the pencil to the page
from deep inside the casket



the sunflower
even torn from its stalk
still follows, attentive, the movement of the sun



the clams from Maine
taken from their tidy beds
west to Monterey
still open with the ebb and flow from way back east
their mute cries falling flat
on laboratory ears

and the corn never tastes as sweet
as it did in summer
at home
with you

Nathan Dana Aldrich
2007