Not to be Forgotten

photographer unknown

Attended, last evening, an event to honor my friend, poet laureate, and exemplary human, Bruce Dethlefsen.  Wrote this little piece for the gathering::

Forgotten

after Bruce Dethlefsen

on the conclusion of his term

as Wisconsin Poet Laureate

I forget each street by street

each road by road

your purple truck

cross-hatching

Cross Plains to Crivitz.

The joys and pains.

As if it’s out of mind, now

your Wisconsin

cow by cow

their black and white.

I forget each day of days

the Champagne flight

of word by word

that tomato

that celebrated spread of mayonnaise

all gone again.

Each morning, each memory

flying bird by bird.

There, totally forgotten

the life by life

turned poem by poem.

Your laureate, bardic ways.

italicized lines stolen from Bruce Dethlefsen,

and herein returned by           Ralph Murre