Poem for August 2010

Poem for August 2010

 

Clevelanders have learned not to expect much from economic recovery plans, professional sports teams, and road repair projects, but, as the poet reminds us, there are some things we can rely on.

                                                Meredith Holmes 

 

 

Only Hope

by James Hagan

Breezy night, oak tree limbs

in the neighborhood

are writhing in history

but the streetlight

blinking through them   

is a signal lamp spelling

S-U-M-M-E-R.

Warm rain pinging the gutter

telegraphs the same message.

 

Tomorrow is Saturday 

and sun is expected.

A man will be playing catch

with a daughter;

a woman will be marching

her son to the barbershop

just down the street;

a cardinal will look especially red.

James Hagan grew up in Youngstown, Ohio, and now lives on Cleveland’s West Side. He spent 24 years as a union organizer and an advocate for the rights of working people. Recently, his poem "Pins" was published in Ploughshares, a literary journal of Emerson College in Boston.