Postcard of Chicago streets,
one blurred brown figure ringed in ink,
then written on the back it’s me now.
Wherever he was then. He drifted west
along the railroad ties, went north
to work the dams, south to the rigs,
through Germany and the lowlands, spoke of Alaska
and the deserts of Arabia, he’d seen
more gold than all God’s grains of sand.
But no one’s heard in years, he may be dead
or changed, all memory of a life
he sometime lived blinked out like stars.
And all his laughter stopped, the voice
that rounded out in bitter beer
broke forth in Crimond. Where
does it go, that presence in the air,
brightness of a man that sang,
a breath that answered in his name.