Whom I Remember Most Vividly
Sociologists maintain that in America
Achievers are the ones we remember.
The non-achievers we forget.
Yet I remember most vividly
People I knew who in their lifetime
Did not achieve a single significant thing:
Bill the butcher sliced our meat.
Saul the tailor pressed my shirts, and
Jerry the grocer weighed produce.
.
Taught by Lovely Birds
I feel as dreary now as this marsh itself,
Alone in this gray barren place,
Unsure of myself, afraid.
Where am I going now?
Yet I admire rising from the water before me
A magnificent black bird whose wings open wide
And show a brilliant vermillion on the underside,
That shrieks with delight as it takes flight.
To live as happily as I wish I might
My soul must be to desolate places
As a bird that rises joyfully
From reeds and rushes
Racers
My father drives the family
To the beach, parks the car, and then
Says, “Go” and we race from the car
To the sand where the family will happily
Spend the afternoon in the sun.
He always wins the race because
He is a racer and much older and
Stronger and faster than me.
But I am a racer too, and through
Those years of finishing second I
Am growing stronger and faster,
And when I am fourteen I beat him.
Running that race we are even
And then I pull ahead. A strange thing
Happens: as we approach the
Sand I don’t want to win. I don’t want
To beat him. I slow so that he will win again.
When we stop he says, “You needn’t slow down.
You are a faster racer than I am now.”
I never forget those words or that race.
I go on to win many races and set
Records, win trophies, medals, and ribbons
And achieve more in racing than he ever did, and
Perhaps more in life than he did. But in his prime
And my youth he was a racer who could beat me.
Beautiful Lady at the Fair
At the history museum today
I saw a life size picture of you
Turning a corner
In the rain
Carrying a parasol
At the World’s Fair
A century ago.
What do you mean to me?
What do your long lace gloves,
Flowing gown,
Plumed hat, and gentle face
Signify to me?
Why does the memory of you move me
And puzzle me so?
What were you like?
Where were you going after the fair?
Were you meeting someone for dinner?
What had you not told anyone
That you might have told me
Had we met,
Had I known you?
Why do I feel such deep
Friendship with you
And wish I too at that moment
Was turning that corner
Under those rain clouds
Talking and laughing with you
That day long ago?
© 2026 David J. Rogers
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