January 2025
Steve Klepetar
sfklepetar@icloud.com
sfklepetar@icloud.com
Author's Note: My granddaughter’s sixth grade teacher asked me to speak to her class about Greek myth. I told them about the labors of Hercules, and, of course, it was great fun. Nothing like sixth graders! Aside from my granddaughter, the kid who was the most into it was named Apollo. No kidding. Sometimes the universe just gives you one.
Swing States
My granddaughter sings in the choir.
Nine voices merge and blend,
nine girls spinning webs of song.
She and her sister phone swing states
to get the vote out. Almost no one
answers their calls, two hang up.
After weeks of despair, I learn
that the largest known star is 1700
times larger than the radius of our sun.
Without Us
The world will keep trudging through time without us
—Joy Harjo
Light takes eight minutes to arrive from the sun.
The universe will continue to expand.
Maybe someone will be breathing here,
where cypresses bend towards the lake.
Another long week grinds to an end.
Sunday morning early, a father
takes his daughters for pancakes,
a local place with good coffee
and cheerful girls with tattooed arms.
Folk music on a long loop.
There might still be baseball and guitars.
Maybe the sun will be shining, birds will warble
in the trees out back. Here that?
A violin playing a halting tune, a schoolgirl
working at a new piece. And now woodpeckers
across the road, thrumming on a derelict house.
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