Everett Poetry Nite, November 17, 2025
The Midwatch
for Veteran’s Day 2025
Lieutenant Fallon goes over the log
as I assume the midnight watch.
He heads for his rack in officer’s country.
I’ll be here until oh four hundred.
The ship is cruising at 15 knots
in calm waters west of Pearl
on the same great circle route
that always takes us to Subic Bay.
We’ll be in combat soon enough,
but not tonight—all is quiet.
I think of roommates I left behind
on Hillegass Avenue two years ago.
Roger with his history PhD.
is now an analyst for the C.I.A.;
Milt is an engineer at IBM;
and Walt is teaching Freshman Comp.
Their lives are set, but I’m here
standing watch, marking time
in harm’s way, but I don’t regret
that I am the one who chose to serve.
The midwatch is slow. I sip some coffee
simmering on the burner for many hours.
How long, oh how long, til four o’clock
when, finally, I can get some sleep?
At the end of the watch, I had a thought.
We all make choices and this is mine:
I love my country, America, my home;
because of love, I chose to serve.
The Chapel of the Transfiguration
The first thing I saw was the constellation of houseflies
on the Chapel of the Transfiguration window blocking the grandeur
of the Cathedral Group with Grand Teton in the center.
The fly was the filthiest of creatures to my fastidious eye.
I was offended at first: the sacred was marred by the profane.
so I stepped outside the log church to see
the majesty of the mountains beneath the blue canopy
without the pious interference of human hands.
That was sixty-two years ago. I’ve had a rethink.
God is not captured, domesticated, and confined
to churches, but is alive in every created thing.
Without a nature-based spirituality, the word profane
means outside the temple. Are we fish looking for water?
And why do we argue about who owns the water?
Turning the Blank Pages
It was all good for the first three and a half minutes.
He led the orchestral intro from the bench,
waving his arms and bobbing his head
while I turned the pages.
No one was paying attention to me.
Then the orchestra fell silent.
Herr van Beethoven launched into his solo part
and I swung open the next page…to nothing.
It was page after blank page
with just the occasional hieroglyphic note
that meant something to him
but nothing to me.
I panicked.
How was I to know
when one blank page ended
and another blank page began?
He took delight in my troubles,
but was kind enough to give me
a surreptitious nod
whenever we came to the end of emptiness.
The concert was a success.
No man was a better friend than Beethoven
when he was in a jolly mood.
I cherish the memory of his howls of laughter
at our convivial dinner after the concert!
Time brings an end to all living things.
Beethoven is gone now.
My own health is fragile.
That night in Vienna when I turned pages
for a generational genius—
unsure of what was coming next,
but surrounded by music most sublime
and encouraged by his bemused glance
at just the right moments—
was a key life lesson.
When we wake up in the morning
or start a new year,
we don’t have a score to follow.
We put our trust in the Master at the keyboard
giving us celestial music and surreptitious nods
as we turn the blank pages of our lives.
NOTE: Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 was first performed on April 5, 1803. Beethoven’s pupil Ignaz von Seyfried was the page turner.
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