four score
and four
a good run
and the good son
tramps behind
dogging the old
man’s heels
to that camp
and the fire
built against
the night
to the bedroll
that invites
tired bones
to lie down
and listen
watch the dying
embers fade
to crackling
heat and shadow
then fall into
the deep sleep
his body needs
so sound
there’s no memory
of a dream

Yesterday we walked apart, 
Separate and cold and mortal. 
Now the mystic kiss has joined us, 
Now we stand inside the portal

That permits of no returning,
And my heart is strangely burning. 

I know not what the word may be, 
Or what the charm, or what the token, 
That has filled us with this glory. 
But never let the charm be broken. 

Let it stay a mystery
For all time to be. 

Yesterday, with lighter joys,
We wantoned at the outer portal. 
Now, with love’s old alchemy, 
We have made ourselves immortal. 

He wrote the whole novel in his head,

Sentence by sentence. It took him all day.

Then he took out a wide-ruled yellow legal pad

With three pink vertical lines marking the left margin,

And from his breast pocket he extracted

A disposable plastic fountain pen,

And near the top of the page he wrote the word ODE

In black ink, all caps. For a few minutes he did nothing. 

Then he skipped three lines and wrote,

"It was the greatest birthday present he had ever received:

The manual Smith-Corona typewriter

His parents gave him on the day he graduated from high school

After they took him to the Statler Hilton for lunch, 

Where they had cold poached salmon, his father's favorite."