Riding Passenger-Side

Three Reasons to Approve

Of Mankind

 

As I Rode Passenger-Side on a Car Trip,

I Was Invited to Speak of the Good Things

That Fly in the Face of My General Misanthropy.

So, I Spoke of How the Warm Days of Summer

Served as the Backdrop for a Rite of Passage

Between the Dreams of My Childhood

And the Even Sweeter Delusions

Of Park Board Baseball.

 

I Also Mentioned How the Last Days of My Innocence

Involved Sleeping and Dreaming Freely with Others

In the Magnificent City of San Francisco, California

And the Other Imaginary Places of the 1960s

 

Part 1

 

When nine boys burst upon a field

In white that burns the eye,

 

We tip our hats unto the blaze

Beneath the summer sky

 

One ball

 

Is given at the start,

 

One ball

 

To play the game,

 

Unblemished in the hand of youth

That hurls the ancient flame

 

When nine boys burst upon a field,

Old men rise to their feet and, in applause,

They celebrate, the circle made complete.

 

PART 2

 

A cable car clangs in the wharf, and there, all men are free

To scatter in the gold of day and gather all they see

 

I am the boy who spreads the news, God's newborn amity;

I am a giver of the gold, the reason men are free

 

The year is nineteen sixty-nine; the sun is loud and bright;

And I am but a dazzling day that knows not of the night.

 

Part 3

 

But there were many wonderful American towns in the 1960s,

The most beautiful of which was Wytheville, Virginia.

 

I was there only two days �"

Broke and sleeping in a municipal park �"

Or, maybe it was just someone’s empty lot.

But it smelled good, and I was happy to sleep there.

 

Good things can also be said for the townspeople I encountered,

While waiting on the arrival of money at Western Union.

 

They smelled like flowers,

And one of them gave me

A small fruit pie before I left.

 

About 50 years later, I drove through Wytheville

On the way back from visiting my daughter in Pennsylvania.

It looked a lot different, but the people smelled just as good,

Even though there was no fruit pie to affirm their righteousness.