In the summer before the world went mad
Einstein summered at Peconic bay.
He walked the beach in shorts and sandals,
He was quite bohemian in his way.
Soon he would write that letter to Roosevelt
And the atomic age will have begun.
But, for the moment, he was just
A middle aged man
enjoying his last peacetime Sun.
The stars are more numerous than
The grains of sand
And space more infinite
That the sea.
His best days were, by then, behind him,
But happier he would never be.

When you are old like me
The sports page isn’t the first one
That you check.

It was just a modest notice,
If I hadn’t checked the obits
I’d have missed it,
I suspect.

Karen L., an entertainer,
She sang and played
Guitar.

In the eighties
I’d be there most nights
When she played our local
Bar

Mostly she sang others’ songs.
Her own lost on the wind.
Still and all I was a fan.
If you suspected we were lovers
I wouldn't tell you if you're wrong.


Her alto voice
was smooth and strong.
Her brown hair streaked with grey.
A little Simon
A little Guthrie
Those were her kind of song.

She made a modest living
As she turned breathe into song.
Others might have grown discouraged
But not her;
she was strong.

We lost touch ;( my fault)
some years ago.
Life dictates what must be.
Like River water our paths diverged
and flowed on
separately.

Her old guitar is silenced now
No nimble fingers play.
I’ll be along in just a while
Dear friend
My water of life
Will empty soon
Into the selfsame sea.

The call came late one evening
just before she would have been asleep.
Rob said "there's been  a hit and run."
"A stranger found Dad in the street."

She got herself dressed hurriedly
without an eye to style.
She left the kids with Steven;
A quick kiss as a goodbye.

She took Lyft to the hospital;
and as she watched the streetlights pass by.
She wondered how she ought to feel
If her father were to die.

The two of them were long estranged.
Had ever they been close?
Much easier to dress in black
if he had given up the ghost.

Rob called her from emergency
that Dad was fading fast.
His breathing was irregular
This night would be his last.

She joined Rob at the bedside
When she saw theirDad she gasped.
How could  he still be breathing
with all those tubes in place.?

The old man on the gurney
reached out and squeezed her hand.
Her father was too far gone  to speak
but hoped she'd understand.

There was no time for redemption
before the old man slipped above.
But, as she bent to kiss his battered cheek
there was time enough for love

On this, the last night of our world,
As rockets flare and people scream,
A floating mount of arctic ice
has made a nightmare of our dream.

Dear Charlotte, get into the boat.
Don't make an orphan of our child.
I smile and lie and say that I
will be along in just a while.

She nods, and we share a final kiss,
a kiss redolent of goodbye.
It is my hope that they will live,
while I prepare myself to die.

Doomed gentlemen upon the deck;
noble, wealthy or in trade.
I play as brave as any there
In this, our final masquerade.

Their little lifeboat floats away
adrift upon a sea of glass.
I pray, for the first time in years,
full knowing that this cup won't pass.

Should I go down with the ship?
That is the Captain's choice, I hear.
Or put a gun into my mouth
And firing, put an end to fear?

No. I will stand with these brave men,
Who made the choice that I have made.
We'll leap before Titanic sinks
And in these depths find honorable graves.

She speaks of marriage; does she not see
the dissolution of my life and dreams?
My family’s’ fortune was lost in the Depression.
My Guggenheim wasted on unrealistic schemes.
I’ve spent these last years drinking, scarcely writing.
In taverns and dark places I have lingered;
searching for the Love that dares not speak its name.
Once I had such Love, but the fever broke.
I don’t think Love will trouble with me again.
I am weighted down with troubles and concerns.
My Youth and promise offered up for wine.
I long for sleep beneath these churning waves
If I take the leap will anyone know or care?
One resolute step will end both pain and time.

Yes! in the sea of life enisled,
With echoing straits between us thrown,
Dotting the shoreless watery wild,
We mortal millions live alone.
The islands feel the enclasping flow,
And then their endless bounds they know.

But when the moon their hollows lights,
And they are swept by balms of spring,
And in their glens, on starry nights,
The nightingales divinely sing;
And lovely notes, from shore to shore,
Across the sounds and channels pour—

Oh! then a longing like despair
Is to their farthest caverns sent;
For surely once, they feel, we were
Parts of a single continent!
Now round us spreads the watery plain—
Oh might our marges meet again!

Who order'd, that their longing's fire
Should be, as soon as kindled, cool'd?
Who renders vain their deep desire?—
A God, a God their severance ruled!
And bade betwixt their shores to be
The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea.

Two young boys had their lines cast into the water while their playmate, Diana, skipped stones across the surface.. “Stop that!” Mohamed said, “You’re scaring the fish.” Just then the other boy, Jesus, felt a tug on his line.” As he reeled in his catch, he teased the slightly younger boy. “You are just saying that because your basket is empty and mine is getting full.”
Mohamed selected a stone and hurled it high into the air over the bay. As the stone arched down to the water he said: “No matter how high the stone ascends it always submits to the will of Allah.” Jesus selected a flat stone and sent it skimming along the surface of the water before it too sank beneath the waves. “Look how the stone generates ripples of change as it passes along the surface of the water on its way to eternity.”
Diana selected a small flat stone and sent it on its way across the water. “You two are getting way too philosophical for me. I am merely playing a game. I call it skimming stones.”

“We should eat; I’m getting hungry” Said Mohamed, producing five small loaves of barley bread. Jesus gathered some driftwood from the shore and started a small fire in a pit scooped out from the sand. He took the two fish he had caught and began to cook them over the open flame.
As the three friends sat cross legged on the sand and enjoyed their lunch, they were observed by a slightly older lad, Siddhartha, who had been enjoying the day beneath the shade of a tree father up the *****. As he walked toward them Jesus greeted him saying. “Would you like to join us Sid? We have enough left over to feed a small village. Siddhartha paused, then patted his stomach ruefully, saying. “If I eat too much I will be mistaken for a small village.”

AS the sun began to decline into the western sky Diana said.” We had better get started back to the village. You know how frantic your mother gets, Jesus, when she doesn’t know where you are.” Diana shook the sand from her hair and tied it up in a neat efficient pony tail.

As the four friends made their way home across the hardscrabble towards the village the Sun cast their elongated shadows across the white sand until they reached the village and went their separate ways. The Sun cast a few final deep red rays over the surface of the Bay before descending into the waters of the salt unplumbed eternal sea. Then the only light remaining was the reflected light of the crescent moon.