Thanks to Mr. Door Tree and his Fablous Blog of early comics, here is the Maid of the mist

A new poem by me and some atomic bomb photos including the clown cloud and califlower

DINNER TIME

No one has used this road since

The end of World War II when

Rain came down for eight days

Drowning the wood, abandoning

Even the golden voices of the animals

That once lived here.

It wasn’t that it was dark,

Thoughts could easily become more dense

Than the crippled light that insisted

On being there despite having been foreclosed

And locked with thorns that seemed

Sharper than memory when unfolded.

But we came here anyway, if only

To be troubled by the fact that the road

Refused to go away or stop leading

To anywhere; a cut where, looking ahead

One could see the trees break and an open

Meadow lean ahead all the way to the lake

Shore. In the summer there were fireflies

That received the place like a memory.

Summer is gone, the war is gone

And we, for want of learning something special,

Something to place at the service of trying

To understand all the histories all over again,

Cause us to falter a bit and look

Cautiously about us to see if we can

Explain anything about this loss or the place

Itself that might leave us feeling

Intrusive about our need to be here.

The placid shadows, the mothers calling

Their sons home to dinner across the fields.