THE FINAL PERCEPTIONS OF A BRILLIANT FOOL

This is a poem written by Dr. Norman Feinberg. He asked me to post it up. So here it is on the internet.

THE FINAL PERCEPTIONS OF A BRILLIANT FOOL

by Dr. Norman Feinberg © 2009

 THE FINAL PERCEPTIONS OF A BRILLIANT FOOL

I sit here alone and waiting

For the Grim Reaper to finally appear

I know not when the exact time will come

Maybe today, tomorrow or sometime next year

It is this waiting that is so intolerable

For it gives me thought I wish to forget

Specifically, how can someone die at last?

When living has not been a friend he has met

Death is all around me, choking every breath

It never halts a moment to rest

Taking those whom you would call the worst mankind

As well as the ones you can think the best

Somewhere in the midst is where I belong

For a life unlived can duly attest

The thoughts of fear and loneliness prevailed

Yet the joy of youth exonerated all the rest

A play on words, an oxymoron to be sure

The question I have no answer for

That if death is just a part of life

How does one die without living before?

But the paradox is that I must have lived

The evidence proven by the words on this page

Although living is only a state of mind

I have no reason to dispute the thoughts of this sage

Each morning I awakened form a place unknown to me

A land full of dreams both good and bad

Happy to escape the frightful ones

Yet the good dreams awakened from leave me quite sad

An existential mind whom would have made Sartre proud

I dose my eyes hoping a half a century has not passed

What will my thoughts be when the Reaper appears

Whom or what will my consciousness think last

Will it be of what might have been?

Of a wasted genius turned absurd

Or perhaps the incongruity of Dylan's Desolation Row

The most profound yet insane poem I have ever heard

Maybe it will be of the legions of people

Those that built up and destroyed my being

The ones I trusted to look after my soul

Perchance the few who allowed me to truly continue seeing

The father I hardly knew; but who gave me the gift of verse

The woman I loved or rather l lusted

The two saints I will surely in Heaven again see

My mother and brother; those I most trusted

Will my last thoughts be of the first decade?

The only time I almost felt alive

Chasing butterflies in the sun

Running from bees as they exited their hive

The glory of catching polliwogs

In the shallows of a clear spring lake

Yet when they were out of their habitat

l ran from them as if from a venomous snake

All these thoughts - perhaps one indeed my last

I hope they bring me through Heaven's door

So I may finally speak to God face to face

Asking entrance to his house - even if only on the first floor.

My existence has been in black and white

Exhilaration to the nth degree

Fears so intent I could only imagine the worst

Not knowing which of these was the real me

Surrounding once by a plethora of friends

A family so endearing as to smother all danger

Now I can count on the fingers of one hand

Those whom I think of not as a stranger

The sobering thought is the reality it will only get worse

Unless I hopefully will become nature's next foe

Then I will mercifully not have to watch

Another victim melts like July's answer to snow

Once I thought myself invincible

Young and healthy with barriers easily hurdled

Now l feel like the oldest of creatures

Slow and sedentary like a century's old turtle

All these feelings crept into my being

One by one I noticed the change

Then one day I realized the truth

The reflection in the mirror was of someone quite strange

Who was that middle-aged leprechaun?

Shrinking with age before my very eyes

It seemed so clear that I was the victim

Of the finality before someone dies

So take me to the next level

Wherever and whatever that might be

Allow me to go where all before land

Wind up in the universe's great dark sea

Rod Serling was an intellectual hero of mine

Seeing life and death in a manner not unlike I have

With a bizarre irony and a fateful twist

As if Picasso's Guernica was sketched on a pad

Wth stories reminiscent of Aesopian moral

Like the simple yearning of Henry Bemis to have time at last to read books

Or the tale of the futuristic camera

Winding up in the hands of two inept doomed crooks

Serling was the knowing narrative

Not unlike the Greek speaking through Homerian tales

When the man with the ever-present cigarette died

We lost a modem troubadour whose stories never failed

To make us ponder thoughts long forgotten

Like the universal wish that we all go home

Or that which constitutes beauty is only superficial

Unless it emanates deep down under the skin and bones

I've always marveled at his intuitive insight

His imagination mixed with scientific knowledge

Watching his immortal Twilight Zone episodes

Enlightening as studying the human condition in an Ivy League college

A great deal of my thoughts were first planted

By Serling's stories depicting the line separating reality and dream

If Heaven and Hell are two sides of the same coin

Then how difficult for mankind to distinguish that which appears to be seen

Perhaps all the feeling I espouse

Are bridges on the ledge between day and night

Some are warm with moments flicked with joy

While others are cold devoid of any light

Heroes never die despite their mortality

Their deeds remain in our minds and hearts

My life has been filled with wondrous events

The men and their accomplishments will never part

Who can ever forget the events of July 1969?

When heroic Neil Armstrong walked on the moon

Can it really be forty years since the world saw this done?

I doubt that I will see again a feat so great emerge so soon

Another monumental task occurred in my lifetime

When Dr. Jonas Salk found a way to prevent a disease

Not just any ailment but the scourge of young children

More than a half century later most children walk with ease

This very Winter a hero came forth in New York's Hudson River

A courageous airplane captain saved his passengers and crew

He landed his plane upon the frozen water without injury

I shudder to think the outcome if that was me or you

Heroic stories have been told throughout recorded history

They demonstrate the strength men can attain

In times of universal crisis or individual tragedy

Humans are able to rise up past the frivolous and inane

But what really makes men and women heroes

Aside from the act for which they are remembered best

I believe it comes from deep within the knowledge

That when a crisis arose some dwarf all the rest

So whom you may ask might our next hero(es) be

An athlete, an astronaut, a doctor or an aviator

Perhaps, but I surmise that the truly next hero we will see

Is that person who finds an end to all war

We are a species consumed by time

Trying to speed it up or slow it down

Unrealistically attempting to control

While illogically we cannot even count

For what is this concept we have tried to define

Something you cannot see or feel nor touch

Nature's continuous road on which we travel

As close as man lives it; though not very much

Often I think of how time seems to change

As a youth it seemed to be slow an endeavor

When recalling the names given it by mankind

A day, week, month or year were perceived as ending never

But as I grew older time seemed to accelerate

Where once a Summer vacation seemed an endless foray

Now each year the time between July and September

Fly by so quickly the time seems no more than a day

As I ponder this phenomenon, I was want to explain

I began to understand why this reality occurred

It became apparent that in youth each day represents

A larger percent of time lived, seen and heard

So as you grow older and another passage of time goes by

This sequence in fact is a smaller part of the entire

So that relative time seems now to appear

To be moving at a rate faster than the prior

As I sit here thinking of such analytical thoughts

It's apparent that what f am doing is searching for truth

An endeavor I long ago would have spurned

But alas that was the time of my long lost youth

Mornings are the hardest

As reality replaces blissful sleep

The sun peeks through your half shut eyes

There is no more reason for counting sheep

Another treacherous day has awakened you

The respite of the night subsides

All that you hope resolved

Faces you head on in the dangerous thoughts in which you reside

Loneliness which never appears in dreams

Now permeates the entirety of your mind

Vicious rodents seek to emasculate you

There is no evidence of anything kind

As the day continues, there is nary a shred

Of decency or compassion; only lies and deceit

Love now only a memory long ago lost

Hate once unknown you can no longer defeat

Wishing you had not awakened

From the temporary peace sleep has brought

Counting the hours till your eyes shut close again

Perhaps death will now be what sleep has bought

Unending days follow this pattern

Darkened nights to the wind and the snow

If ever someone needed Divine help

It is this pitiful, sorrowful urchin you know

A day in the fife of a once beautiful soul

Has disappeared like never to be

I only can tap into what I know to be true

That awakening from sleep was once Heaven to me

Whatever happened to double headers

On hot Sundays in the middle of July

When Mickey Mantle hit home runs so far

They looked like they would never descend from the sky

Whatever happened to the seven white and black channels on TV

That had more great classic and interesting shows to view

Than the unenviable task of cable search

With hundred of channels with little interest to me or you

Whatever happened to eating what you enjoy

And not worrying whether it was healthy or not

Where everywhere you looked or read

The foods you ate became an exercise in what? (Immortality?)

Whatever happened to the scores of friends

Whom you saw each and every day

Now l can count on the fingers of one hand

Those whom I hope never go away

Whatever happened to the aspirations I had

Of a future filled with hope and bliss

Where did the necessities for joy disappear

What error did I make; what road did I miss

Whatever happened to the wife I so wanted

Or the children who would inherit the wind

Why did I always choose the wrong girl

How could I not allow my mistakes to rescind

Whatever happened to the family I so adored

Both nuclear and extended and the answer is yes

All the things once here but now gone

Disavow them all in the name of progress - not

For most of my cognitive life I have wondered

What is the scourge referred to as cancer

Affecting every part of the body

Despite decades of research we are not yet close to have an answer

It targets all parts of society

The famous and those only known by a few

Even though you may think you are immune

The chances are it will strike someone close to you

I have known first hand how this disease can destroy

How illogical the afflicted can be struck down

That so called prevention never really works

That remission is as funny as Pagliacci's clown

My nuclear family has lost two members to cancer

By some perverse coincidence each to another

My father, a lifelong smoker, did succumb

To the same fate that robbed us of my oh so pure brother

Recently I watched on TV with sadness

The fight of a beauty as she loses with horror

Though seeking a cure, her courage be blessed

A miracle now is the only hope that can save the lovely Farrah (died 6/25/09)

Though not a medical doctor, I have deduced

That cancer is nature running amok

What normally allows the body to heal and rejuvenate

Cancerous cells reproduce wildly like an out of control truck

As a footnote to this ominous tale

Two other members of my family have survived cancer

Yet if anyone knows how to stop this disease

It is from God above we will find the answer

Visions of my first long lost love

Creep often into my dreams at night

Though she is lost to me almost fifty years

The picture she portrays is dear in my sight

We used to travel into New York City

When the trains were safe and clean and only fifteen cents

Exploring Manhattan as for the first time

And the ecstasy of leaving behind the Bronx tenements

Or going bowling on a Saturday at Stadium Lanes

Which I miss to this day

Across from the real House that Ruth built

The new one an impostor despite what they say

We loved each other in a way hard to explain

But that is the beauty when sex is not there

A feeling of innocence based on respect and trust

Prepubescent tykes knowing only that they care

I often wonder why of all the females

That have crossed my path throughout my life

Why is it only this first true love

That I dream about: that I should have made my wife

The memories of her are still so very clear

Her voice like that of Summer's beautiful song bird

Those eyes so bright like an Olympic pool

We should have spent our lives together; if only I had known the words

Now as I travel the final steps on life's road

Many a thought through my mind does recall

Of those I knew; of those now lost

Of a lifetime of love still there for Janice Ball

Everyone dies a pauper

Regardless of what material riches you possess

Leaving this life in much the same way you entered

Except for being naked, now wearing a suit or a dress

The idea so wonderfully phrased

That "you can't take it with you" I fully adhere

So the measure of what your life did entail

Or what or whom you influenced while your short stay here

Yet it is very hard to pinpoint the measure

Of how your stay on earth affected others

A teacher can never really be sure

Of what lessons taught open minds free or smothered

History is told by the words of great men

As wen as the women whose lives made life better

Yet I wonder if Newton, Einstein, DaVinci or Curie's

Genius could be seen if it were not for those from whom they learned their first letters

Cause and effect is a never-ending thought

How the grandest and smallest idea grew to be

The way that the world has come to evolve

Why is it the one idea has become that tenets of we

I suppose you could call it the interaction of minds

When learning and exploring tum into concepts

How inventing the wheel and the discovery of fire

Producing a new age of progress replacing the one heretofore inept

Unfortunately though mankind has certainly developed

He remains a creature still not quite whole

So when he dies, as is his inevitable fate

He leaves everything behind except his immortal soul

With the advent of the video recorder

I have collected over 30 years of time

VWh a passion to consolidate everything

That I truly believe is only mine

I looked at that which I thought was lost

Seeing people no longer here

Yet feeling that I have not made up or imagined

All that I once held so dear

Dreams are like videos of the mind

They indeed can be quite grand

The only pitfall to a wonderful dream

Is upon wakening the reality you must now understand

I often dream of those I know are no longer alive or in some other way lost

But the dreams that dominate the night

Are but another way t o warm the frost

Of trying to control and conquer time

A task so absurd as to be on the edge

Yet in every dream that comes through my mind

I am always standing on this comical ledge

Where events that never happened

At least not in the way that I see

Become turned upside down or in reverse

So although recognizable are foreign or strange to me

It would seem that this pattern

Of trying to realize a once glorious past

Are both the results of videos and dreams entwined

And until the end of my life will continue to last

It suddenly and inexplicably dawned on me

That my very writings including this very one

Are no longer directed at specific people or events

They are more philosophical; dare I say reckless if the truth be known

In trying to write an all encompassing tome

Realizing the little time left to me

I have attempted to put all my thoughts in a neat pile

So the reader can fathom all the findings I see

In that past four decades; the beginning of which

I began to vomit all the disdain and distrust

Of a life gone awry though I take all the blame

For if not for my actions then the memories would be dust

Once there were many people and events to be charged

Yet their common denominator was always me

I allowed that which malevolently occurred

By not realizing we are all those in whose frailties I see

So to indict an individual for the loss of innocence

Or to try to convince the world not to judge

A sensitive, brilliant yet so troubled imp

Is like trying to demonstrate the purity of sludge

I now write in what might be deemed generalities

For what I believe now refers to all of you

That aside from a few inconsequential differences

Like pigmentation, religion, mankind's similarities are more than a few

So the next time you wish to disagree, to conflict

Remember that we are all of one basic image

If mankind can put all paltry differences aside

Then all that we are becomes our greatest knowledge

Amazing is the human mind

The grandest machine created by God

Processing thoughts in a methodical way

Yet allowing to forget events we deem as too hard

A camera which can take pictures of things not there

As we imagine what we wish to be true

Remembering the most minute events

As it relates to its effect on me or you

Such an event came to me as I slept

Although it can hardly be called a dream

Rather a recollection of an event from my distant past

Allow me to share it with you; so you'll see that I mean

More than a half century ago

In the Springtime of Eisenhower years

The Korean War had ceased to be (for the moment)

For the time being, there would no longer be mothers tears

I remember quite vividly that beautiful day

As this little tyke played around our Bronx flat

Which was being painted by a tall black man

Whose simple words resonate still how about that

He and my mom were discussing the aforementioned war

How so many young men needlessly had died

With no resolution of the conflict achieved (see today's headlines)

Except that it had been the cause for those who had cried

The words which he spoke were indeed quite profound

That wars would be only in history books

A truly noble thought: if he had only known

That the next fifty plus years would convey

A series of conflicts that seemed never to abate

Unlike previous wars whose goals were quite clear

These miniature conflicts were nurtured solely by hate

Some of the "wars were ideologically fought

like four decades of stand-off between the East and West

They called it the "Cold War" for it never became

A shootout, although at times it was put to the test

Never so close as that October day in 1962

When the Americans and Soviets came eye to eye

And all over the globe people were sure we had come

To the moment that an mankind was going to die

Somehow cooler heads did prevail

A most volatile moment did not boil over

l presume from logical minds on both sides

Saw the ominous nuclear mushroom cloud which indeed did hover

There have been many smaller conflicts

That indeed have seen the blood of young men

Spill over deserts, wastelands and jungles afar

Started and ceasefire again and again

Vietnam was the war that painter thought not

Indeed that war was the one most affecting this lad

He could hardly have known that although I was not there

The turmoil of what it did; for years drove me mad

Even today decades after its culmination

This mind which so truly damaged cannot forget

That so long as mankind avoids lasting peace

The painter's hope will not prevail; wars will never end yet

Those who died before their time

Are remembered today in my lifetime

Whether by accident, neglect or unfortunate chance

I list them here as a reminder perchance

They are the famous whose lives ended too soon

In the back of a car or on the way to the moon

The parameters I have set are really quite benign

All those mentioned no older than 49

So let us begin with the first tragedy

And hope that the last is the final I see

Hank Williams Country music's greatest star

New Year's Day 1953 at number 29 died in the back of his car

Johnny Ace, while pledging his love on Christmas Eve 1954

Lost while playing Russian Roulette falling to the floor

James Dean, the ultimate rebel without a cause

Speeding to a race died at 24

Richie Valens, The Big Bopper and the great Buddy Holly

On February third 1959 became rock 'n roll's first major tragedy

On the seventeenth of June 1959

Every front page headline in American read

That the heroes of boys and girls around the globe

Superman had been found in his house shot dead

Of course what the story really meant

That it was actor George Reeves who portrayed him on TV

But the indelible mark of that three inch headline

Left the youth of the world shocked by wonder unreal

Eddie Cochran at 21, killed in England on his way back home

A sad tale of a great young man; thank God he died not alone

Patsy Cline the Queen of country song

Why oh why do these small planes always seem to go wrong?

Johnny Horton, Jesse Belvin, two wonderful singers

Died as the decade changed, their memories forever lingers

The young Ernie Davis of the Syracuse Football team

Waiting to become an NFL star

Died of a terrible disease (leukemia) at age 23

Never to touch the greatness allotted him by far

The sports world not spared in '62 of premature death

As Kenny Hubbs and Wayne Estes gone within the blink of a breath

Hollywood's great symbol of beauty and sex

In the Summer of '62 Marilyn Monroe tragedy's next

It seems that the decade of the sixties

Brought early death every time you turned around

Beginning with the unthinkable

A young President Kennedy; was his killer ever found

Still reeling from the event's of Dallas in 1963

The country now tried to recover in 1964

When three young men, Goodman, Schwemer and Cheney

Were murdered in Mississippi as they tried to take down Jim Crow laws no more

In the very same year as the British invasion

Came with a vengeance upon our shore

We lost two of our great young talents

One to a gunshot. the other to a boat without an oar

Sam Cooke, the inventor of the genre called Soul

Died in a motel at the peak of his star

While Johnny Burnette, the quintessential rocker

The man whose most comfortable venue was a honky tonk bar

The Apollo 1 astronauts died in January 1967

The first time in America's space race

Saw death to some of its bravest young men

It would not be last time death reared its ugly face

The same year we lost the troubled Montomery Clift

The first rebel actor before Brando and Dean

An obituary just waiting to happen

Sometimes death comes before it is ever seen

The ultimate insane deaths of 1966

When a sniper went to the top of a Texas tower

With a rifle killing 26 young innocent people

The entire event took less than an hour

1968, a year perhaps like none I have seen

One America seemed daily filled with screams

Punctuated by the two months when we lost Bobby and Dr. King

A lesson not learned that violence never works; but we can all still dream

That same year we lost Frankie Lymon

Without whom there would not have been a Michael

This past month we eerily lost Michael Jackson (6/25/09)

To the never ending drug killing cycle

The following year we lost the songbird known as Judy

Pills and booze and a troubled mind

Plus years of woe and hardship

Garland was indeed one of a kind

We also lost the original Rolling Stone

In July of that same year

When Brian Jones drowned in his pool

Or so that was the story we were made to hear

As the 7O's ushered in a fresh new decade

The worst was yet to come

We had no idea although deep in our heart we surmised

As music greats dropped one by one

When word came that Hendrix died choking on pills

Within a month we lost Joplin with a needle in her arm

Finally in another twist of fate coming in numbers three

Was the death of Lizard King Jim Morrison a victim of his own harm

The mid decade saw the untimely deaths of two young song writers both in their time

Jim Croce died (yes) in another small plane 

While Harry Chapin's number came up well before his time

The baseball world also lost three young men

Lymon Bostock shot for no apparent reason

Thurman Munson flying home his family wishing to see

In the midst of the baseball season

Perhaps the saddest of all these deaths

Was the loss to all mankind

When Roberto Clemente's rescue plane went down

On his mission to help those the earthquake left behind

Bruce Lee, the brilliant example of the martial arts

As he was emerging as a world-wide star

In 1973, died mysteriously

I guess his genius only was meant to go so far

America's premier long distance runner Steve Prefontaine

But with a life beating to a different drum

Killed on a cycle in 1975 at age 23

We will never know how far he could have run

The 70's took others from us

Like the unique drummer of The Who, the great Keith Moon

And of course the most famous of all

When King Elvis died at 42; indeed much too soon

If we hope that the 80's would give us a respite

Of early death to those so very young

We were indeed about to learn

That death takes no vacation from those it lives among

This decade can be generalized

In a word heretofore known to almost none

As the AIDS epidemic spread over the world

Killing millions of unknown young; and the famous one by one

Freddie Mercury, the charismatic leader of the group Queen

Others in the world of the arts too numerous to name

All succumbed to this unearthly plague

Some to lifestyles, others to needles, the result were all the same

The 80's start for me on a personal note

When my dear Japanese friend Shizuo at 29 died

Followed within months of my brother-in-law Lowell

Both leaving young children left only to cry

Within a month came another senseless death

That rocked the world as few had before

When John Lennon was killed by a man with a gun

As the NRA fought to allow people to have more

His death seems to represent the folly

Of civilization's small price on life

How many young people have died

In the name of country, in the act of strife

Whether it was to "end all wars"

Or on the beaches on D-Day

On the little hill in Viet Nam called Hamburger

There's got to be a better way

Arthur Ashe, a gentle man in the truest way

Died as the result of a doctor's mistake

No one's fault perhaps

But why the good ones should the Lord first take

One New Year's Eve 1985

The Prince who once took Elvis' crown

Died in a small plane crash at age 45

Ricky Nelson and his Stone Canyon Band went down

I have now come to the beginning of the end of my sermon

In which as they say "all true stories end in death"

But the young men and women who died in their prime

Should all be with us now drawing a clean fresh breath

Perhaps the most representative of all the people

Whose life was cut short in a way so inane

Was that of Pat Tillman an athlete who chose to give up

Wealth and fame to fight a war now deemed insane

The past 30 years have taken their toll

On young athletes, entertainers and an the rest

Names like Cobain, Heath Ledger and a girl named Wendy

Some quite unexpected, some quite profound

The brightest and best

AU those who died on 9/11, I'm sure the thousands killed that way

Had nary a clue this was their fate

They would never see another day

I end this dedication to the fallen young

By remembering an event in January 1986

When seven young astronauts died on TV screens

And all of our thoughts were totally transfixed.

This week we pay tribute to the ultimate sacrifice

Of the hundreds who died in battle

I hope we treat our fellow man

Like friends of heroes instead of slaughtered cattle

I know I have omitted a number of souls

Simply because there are too many to mention

But three more come to me while writing this poem

So I add them now with the sincerest intentions

The end of this decade again left its toll

When college basketball's greatest scorer died on the court

Pistol Pete loving what he did best

ln a pickup game, his heart stopped with no retort

The millennium ended on a July night

When another small plane took away the young JFK

He might have followed in his father's shoes

But before that occurred, he gambled with everything to lose.

Each time I think I have ended

This litany of those who have died

Before their time much too soon

Another group of peers side by side by side

Three great musicians dying

Before two score years

Dennis Wilson, the surfing Beach Boys, drowns

Jim Croce, whose Time in Bottle ran out

Stevie Ray Vaughn victimized as the helicopter goes down

I leave with these sad thoughts

Of those who left us without failing to mingle

The ones I mentioned died quite fast

While Jackie Wilson 10 years did he linger

In the spring of 1972,

A small news article said Clyde McPhatter was killed

Years of party and drinking the cause

At 39, R&B's most beautiful voice forever stilled

Sept 1971 saw the death of Pier Angelli at 39

Probably the result of a mother controlling and mean

Hollywood's most fragile and beautiful waif

Forever the star crossed lover of the legend James Dean

A love affair that indeed was quite short

It has lasted in myth well over 50 years

As both died the bookends to a tragic love

What might have been drenched in our tears

I digress for a moment to pay tribute to one

Who technically does not belong in this poem

Who although he was past the age of 49

His birthday this week reminded me to honor him

He was my brother - taken at age 58

Much too young to say farewell

When he should be with us now

And not at Heaven's Gate

Someday I'll be with all these souls

The first thing I'll tell is how much they are missed

But in God's Heaven, age is not real

Eternity does count the years to exist.

One of the reasons for writing this narrative

Perhaps the primary quest that has perplexed my life

Is to try to ascertain the moment of truth

Where a wonderful adventure turned to heartache and strife

A jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing or lost

I have wrestled with this moment with nary a clue

On a road once so right and straight

Turned crooked without destination; totally askew

But somehow in the writing of this monumental opus

A clearer picture began to take shape

The threads which wind throughout this endeavor

Gave me insight into the answer, free to find its escape.

It is now apparent to me that all things changed

When I began to realize the reality of danger

That we are all prone to be whisked away

Despite what we believe: we are all, in some way, total strangers.

Not in the very personal sense

Certainly not to our closest kin

But to the next obstacle around the inevitable road

Where there is no protection from the travesty about to begin.

And at the beginning of the teenage years,

I began to obsess over unprotected danger and death.

Where once I felt that no great harm could come my way,

All those around me would shield me with love with their last breath.

So to pinpoint the moment I became immersed in fear and torment,

Summer is just a month away

A time that once filled me with joy

But that was a word of anticipatory illusion

The hopes and dreams of a dear little boy

I can still recall the plans of my family

Memorial Day being the unofficial start

Watching parades from New York's Champs-Élysées

When the parade ended Summer's impending beginning filled our hearts

Returning home we all went to work at doing

The chores needed to welcome Summer's arrival

It took more than a month for our eventual exit

During that time, school ended, July 4th came and we all took off for an ecstatic survival

As I write part of this lengthy tome

Listening to a song over 50 years old by Charlie Gracie

It speaks of one of nature's most beautiful creatures

The butterfly of my youth chasing it with glee

Those Summers which l refer to remain unmatched

The warm sun, the dear blue sky, the family together

This Summer (assuming there is one) offers me no such hope

Simply another notch in a race toward inability a storm to weather

Yet still beside reality of five decades from Summer's joy

An occasional peek into what was the grandest time

A healthy, hopeful and beautiful soul

This and much more was once upon a time all mine

May this summer grant me one last gleam

I can feel the sun upon my face

The salty sweat streaming down my brow

I can dream, can't I, of that glorious place