Guest Editor

When I was down in the Shire packing up my souvenirs, I came upon a poem Lucille had written to me. She was a law book editor and witty essayist. I asked her once to be a guest editor on the blob but she laughed that idea away. However, now that she doesn't have a say-so, I want her to be my guest. I'm certain if she decides to haunt me over this act of defiance, it will be in a delightfully Irish way. 

Just Desserts

This is not your birthday cake.
If you celebrated birthdays,
it would be your birthday cake.
But, since you do not celebrate
OCCASIONS, it is not your cake.
Besides, today is not your birthday.

It is my birthday cake,
or it would be, except that today
is not my birthday, either.
My birthday is next week,
when you will not be here.

Today is not the birthday of anyone
who lives in this house.
If we eat the cake tonight,
it will not be a birthday cake.

It will just be our desserts,
yours and mine.
Cake and frosting.

Billy Collins*

*O.K. Billy Collins did not write this poem.

And it is not actually a poem.

If I were Billy Collins, I would write

a poem for your birthday. Maybe.

I do not know if you even like Billy Collins.

Maybe he will write a poem for my birthday?

I do know that birthdays deserve celebration,

and you deserve poetry and cake and all things good. **

**The best I could do between the time I got home and the time your feet hit the stairs.~~H.

Honor Cunane

June 19, 2009     

As part of my D-Day memorial, I sat upstairs at the 59th Street Food Emporium. I decline to call the bridge by its new name: the Ed Koch as no mere mortal has the grandeur and grace of that bridge. I wondered what the small cafe used to be in the old days. The architecture is breathtaking with tall windows reminiscent of expecting a brigantine to sail by. The arched sandy brick ceiling is a masterwork suited to a cathedral. There are free magazines on the tables to read while lunching on the tasty salad bar choices from the floor beneath. Traffic cops bring newspapers for their breaks. I read the June issue of Elle featuring Kristin Stewart. The article on her agreed with my assessment that she is a great actress. Anybody who doesn't think so hasn't seen one of her indie movies. It's coincidental that this week I came upon a mystery by a Japanese/American writer set during WWII, Summer of the Big Bachi, and have been watching Land Girls on Netflix from the same time period. The death of Ray Bradbury added to my nostalgia. During the war my family was living in the Azores where the fighting seemed very close to my impressionable mind wary of thunderstorms and flares in the night. I wore a medal of the Queen of Heaven to protect me like a silver splinter of armor and prayed for the good fortune of all the world's children. June 6th is always a contemplative day for me. Ray Bradbury would have appreciated how it travels from long ago to right now carrying simultaneously with it all the intensity of loss and endurance and looking towards a bright tomorrow. Peaceful memories to you, also.