October 2018
Robert K. Johnson
choirofday@cs.com
Born in New York City (in Elmhurst), I lived in several different places there but have memories only of The Bronx (off Fordham Road). Then my family moved out "on The Island"—to Lynbrook, where we stayed till I graduated from Hofstra (then a College). Several years after my wife, Pat, and I married, we, plus our two children, settled in the Boston area and have remained there (except for my daughter, Kate, who has lived in Manhattan for quite a while). I have been writing poetry since I was twelve (many moons ago).

NIGHT SCHOOL


You drive through the deepening dusk
toward the supper waiting for you;
and savor the day's successes
that your fund of knowledge brought you.

Until, when you look up,
the street shows you a brick house,
two stuccos, three more of brick
you've never seen before

and you wonder: Where am I?
—then see a three-story house
you've often imagined owning,
and your cheeks burn with humbleness.





DEEP IN THE JOURNEY
(for a relative)

After decades of brief
but always lively chats
at noisy family gatherings,
I happen to be alone with you

where you lie in a hospital bed,
your drugged eyes barely open.
And--surprised

                  by a surge of sadness— 
I see the two of us, aged and grey,
clinging to a lifeboat
overturned near a shore

that only I will be able to reach.
How can it be we were never more
than mere acquaintances?

previously published in IBBETSON STREET

​©2018 Robert K. Johnson
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