The Immigrant's Love of Snow

Because it came at night with no intent or purpose,
Like unsolicited dreams of loving women,
Snow was more powerful and precious than rain,
More powerful and precious than pain.

It lay like a beautiful language awakened
Translating his foreignness into beauty,
Refining odd dreams into duty.

Always he moved quickly to believe possibilities,
Kissing the stranger who held him so bravely,
Was it the beauty of snow or the coldness alone he craved?

[Poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann, dated November, 1994.]

Third Grade

The Principal came to the door

And told John, who sat next to me,

That Mark, his friend and neighbor,

Five years older, had shot himself.

John, crying, was excused for the day

For Miss Cameron knew how it hurts

To discover that the boy you play

Hide and seek with every night

Want to die, shouting, "Home free!"

But the bullet only blinded Mark,

And he learned to tune pianos,

Married a loving woman,

Was forgiven by his parents

And his beautiful sister,

Who was crowned Queen of the May.

John, however, never forgot

That moment when the Principal

Came to the door and called him out;

And John, himself, died young,

Painfully, they said, of cancer,

One of the so-called natural causes.

[Poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann; written October, 1994.]

Tonsils, 1930

When I was five I rode

My tricycle to the hospital

To have my tonsils removed.

My mother walked with me,

Carrying a small bag.

She would sleep on a cot

Listening for the sound of blood.

I liked to ride my tricycle

So far from home and liked Dr. Charles,

A solemn, taciturn man, who had been

Overseas and seen men die untended

And knew what needed to be done.

Full of ether, I slept all night;

But the next day, my throat hurt

So much I longed to die,

Turning my head to the wall

When Miss Myrtle, our dearest

Friend and neighbor, came to drive

Us home, carrying a melting pint of

Vanilla ice cream.

[Poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann, written in October of 1994. Photo via State Records NSW.]

Certified Fame

The hero of his own story

Watched the Hero and himself

Appear on screen together:

His friends gasp in pleasure.

Later an old newsreel

Shows Ray Lyman Wilbur

Standing, top hat in hand,

As Herbert Hoover, mentor and friend,

Throws out the first ball

Of a disastrous season.

[Written by Virginia McKinnon Mann in October, 1994. Ray Lyman Wilbur was the third president of Stanford University and 31st United States Secretary of the Interior, according to Wikipedia. I guess Mr. Hoover (31st president of the United States) wasn't much of a ballplayer.]