March 2015
I am a retired business-to-business PR and publishing professional residing in northern New Jersey with my wife and son and a shrinking menagerie of merry pets. I began writing poetry (not very well) 100 years ago as an undergraduate at Georgetown University, where I earned bachelor's and master's degrees in English Literature. My poems have appeared recently in Contemporary American Voices (I was the Featured Poet in the January 2015 issue), the Wilderness House Literary Review, Blue Monday Review, and Atavic Poetry. In 2013, I celebrated (mostly by smiling a lot) the publication of my first poetry chapbook, What Comes Next, by Finishing Line Press. A lifelong Giants fan (New York and San Francisco), I still can't believe I lived long enough to see them win three World Series in five years. If you'd like to see more of my work, please click on http://www.whlreview.com/no-9.4/poetry/JamesKeane.pdf.
Author’s Note: The three poems posted here celebrate our adoption of Nicolas (now Nick), who came to us from El Salvador in December 1994. They were inspired by: a photo taken of Nick and me the summer after he came to us (“Baby Montezuma”); a hummingbird that suddenly appeared at our back window several years later, but flew away before I could get Nick down from his room to see it (“Hey, Hummingbird”); and, finally, by the heroic efforts undertaken by my wife (“My Hero”) to make Nick’s adoption – and our family – a happy reality.
Baby Montezuma
The picture captured that distant day
seethes, contentment at play
in me, your new and only father
surrounding you with both arms, squeezing
legs and a tired smile glimmering
all the while I’m tweezing
disenchantment from you, my too
lonely child, my
son – no sunny joy ever
to cloud that day for this baby
Montezuma . . .
As it turns out, Nicolas,
Baby Montezuma
is a name I much admire
too much, though your eyes
breathe the color of a darkening soul
seething
at the ruin of ancient Mexico. So
why even bother to reveal yet another
of my glare-stoking gems to you (for
now), my Prince
of Glowering, your tiny kingdom
town offering one lone driveway
for sanctuary, safe for scurrying,
scurrying, scurrying up only to
glide back down, down, down to a royal
stop on your Razor
two-wheel scooter, fix on me
the darkness of an angry
sharpshooter who missed
yet grins, This time
I choose to let you go, and maybe
it’s best for you I don’t try again
while we grow.
Hey, Hummingbird
Hey, hummingbird
hovering, peering in
just outside my window
to life,
just be there when I need you,
where my sad son
can see you. Be tickled
your soundless whirring makes
him smile a little to fly
a little, forget to cry
alone, a little.
May he always know
he is good, and my prayer
through his window to life
be heard, and never misunderstood:
Keep him lovingly in your sights
all of my days, and all of his nights.
My Hero
While you were busily
absorbed in dirt and spadework,
I was the clean one, gardener
of the barely begun, who, hapless
eyed your radiant smile, grown
expectant, grow sad, and sorrow churn
whatever warmth soothed your heart
to dread. Too warm to be numbed
dead. Your tears would blossom
when I least expected them, and anger
threw me every time they did. So when a child
only of God
came true, plucked
by you, virgin mother,
from a squalid death at the end
of squalor, my resolve to be worthy of
the hero in you grew. And so, thank you
for the dirt and spadework. For the bitter
weeds you sadly churned
to flowers. For exulting
in words that sprouted oh so quickly
when I asked you, somewhat rudely,
“Well . . . how is he?”
“He’s ours.”
The picture captured that distant day
seethes, contentment at play
in me, your new and only father
surrounding you with both arms, squeezing
legs and a tired smile glimmering
all the while I’m tweezing
disenchantment from you, my too
lonely child, my
son – no sunny joy ever
to cloud that day for this baby
Montezuma . . .
As it turns out, Nicolas,
Baby Montezuma
is a name I much admire
too much, though your eyes
breathe the color of a darkening soul
seething
at the ruin of ancient Mexico. So
why even bother to reveal yet another
of my glare-stoking gems to you (for
now), my Prince
of Glowering, your tiny kingdom
town offering one lone driveway
for sanctuary, safe for scurrying,
scurrying, scurrying up only to
glide back down, down, down to a royal
stop on your Razor
two-wheel scooter, fix on me
the darkness of an angry
sharpshooter who missed
yet grins, This time
I choose to let you go, and maybe
it’s best for you I don’t try again
while we grow.
Hey, Hummingbird
Hey, hummingbird
hovering, peering in
just outside my window
to life,
just be there when I need you,
where my sad son
can see you. Be tickled
your soundless whirring makes
him smile a little to fly
a little, forget to cry
alone, a little.
May he always know
he is good, and my prayer
through his window to life
be heard, and never misunderstood:
Keep him lovingly in your sights
all of my days, and all of his nights.
My Hero
While you were busily
absorbed in dirt and spadework,
I was the clean one, gardener
of the barely begun, who, hapless
eyed your radiant smile, grown
expectant, grow sad, and sorrow churn
whatever warmth soothed your heart
to dread. Too warm to be numbed
dead. Your tears would blossom
when I least expected them, and anger
threw me every time they did. So when a child
only of God
came true, plucked
by you, virgin mother,
from a squalid death at the end
of squalor, my resolve to be worthy of
the hero in you grew. And so, thank you
for the dirt and spadework. For the bitter
weeds you sadly churned
to flowers. For exulting
in words that sprouted oh so quickly
when I asked you, somewhat rudely,
“Well . . . how is he?”
“He’s ours.”
Credits: “Baby Montezuma,” “Hey, Hummingbird,” and “My Hero” were previously published in my poetry chapbook, What Comes Next (Finishing Line Press).
©2015 James Keane