Of Things Past

Catherine Chandler Oliveira and her father, Bernard F. Chandler, Sr.

Of Things Past

Briefly thyself remember . . .  

 - William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 4, Scene 6

I.      99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall

That summer when I couldn’t see

for grief – for who could guarantee

he’d ever walk again? – I’d sing

this song and pump my rusty swing,

till every bottle left the wall,

then start da capo (it was all

or nothing) in a voice, though small,

as if the magic chant might bring

my father walking back to me.

II.        Madeleine Moment

Ah, there’s Poughkeepsie. Nineteen fifty-four.

I skip along the Hudson. As the boats

go by, my father calls to me and quotes,

‘Still waters run deep’, as clearly as before

his polio; when, like this chewing-gum,

my life was one sweet, succulent cliché;

where, dauntless in the sun that could not stay,

he climbed the evergreen, I ate the plum.

© Catherine Chandler

"99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" first published in Able Muse, Summer 2009

"Madeleine Moment" first published as "Sapodilla" in Umbrella, Spring 2007

"Of Things Past" first published as a two-part poem in Lines of Flight, Able Muse Press, 2011