for Stacey
“What kind of poems do you write?”
she asked and I said occasional poems
each day is an occasion take today
The sun shone on my face
shielded by a Panama hat
made in Ecuador
and the fate of a leaf in a hurricane
was the day’s best simile for financial markets
where the value of green keeps going up.
The trees and the grass are vying
in the green competition
because “good is as visible as green”
and the lawns are emerald
like the eyes of my beloved
when she saw the ring with two hearts
and an emerald crescent
in the jeweler’s case.
The food tasted good
and simple: beans and rice, chicken,
coconut sorbet, white cherries, lemonade,
and Matthew’s concoction with Cynar and jalapeno-infused gin.
The ice cubes in the glass
sounded like nothing
but themselves.
The sky was blue
The shirt fit
I washed the car.
The newspaper reported
that Cambridge is catching up to Oxford
in real-estate prices
and my thousand words on “To His Coy Mistress”
were nicely illustrated
as I sat and sipped in the sun.
And then I read the new bio of Duke Ellington
and Helen Forrest’s own story
and tilted my hat as I walked
celebrating the day the occasion for
taking a walk enjoying the light
and my new Panama hat.
— David Lehman
The poem appears in Jujubes
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/52508ca0e4b078f5507265fc/t/556d8f00e4b0d78223bf0089/1433243392043/JuJuBes+Magzter.pdf