This living room sofa where we watch baseball—
In fall the ball-games end,
And are replaced by gray days,
Brown dry oak tree leaves,
Shrub leaves shrinking down
Like my parents’ beach house
Closed down for the winter—

At Bethany we’d drive the half-mile and park,
And set up on the sand,
My father digging a hole
For the umbrella—

I’d jump right in the water,
No matter how cold or rough—
Sometimes my worried mother
Would walk to water’s edge
And motion me in,
Always protecting her brood—

Even fifty years later
Here in landlocked Tennessee
I can feel the cold water on my feet,
Smell the salt air,
See the wind’s whitecaps
Breaking o’er the surface,
And horizon’s flat level line
Hinting at lands unseen,
Whole worlds unknown.

The last time
We visited Bethany with my parents
They had aged and still wore warm clothes
On a yet warmer day—

That was the trip
There was a dachshund convention
In Rehoboth, where Biden has a house,
And I proposed
Suspending a fresh steak
Above the town square  
To drive the dogs mad.

But what I remember most,
The day before the drive home,
Was my eighty-year-old, millionaire mother
(falling often even then)
Straining on hands and knees
To scrub the floor,
Barely able to stand,
Still bearing Brooklyn
And the Depression in her heart.

Bless you, Vivian Parker – bless you.