When the sky is pure cobalt
and maples and oaks sing
their yellows and reds
or when from a passing car I hear
old Beatles, Stones, Four Tops or Supremes
or when I see a high school
football team running drills—
I’m reminded then of autumns long past,
of Bob and Wheeler and Jim.

I saw a guy on the street today
who so much resembled Bob.
Tall, olive-skinned, that infectious grin—
Bob has been dead over thirty years.  And Wheeler.
And Jim.  Jim, the dutiful patriot, always regarded
me, the activist, with some suspicion.
You were right about me, Jim.  I wasn’t a proud American.
And I was right about the war.

From a sidewalk coated in brilliant leaves
I watch through the fence a football team
running plays, learning aggression.  I think back
to a time when football seemed less grotesque.
I recall now that Bob played halfback. Wheeler
was a center on the JV.  Had to give it up though;
he smoked too much.  He used to light his butts
in the stairwell leaving school.

I think back to the days of letter jackets,
Saturday night dates, when
folk-rock and the Mersey Sound,
surf music and Motown ruled the radio.
It was a time before William Carpenter was awarded
       a Silver Star for napalming his own men
              to guarantee they wouldn’t surrender,
a time before William Calley ordered the murder
       of the women, the elderly, the children
              of My Lai,
a time before the image of the gun
       to the head of a suspected sympathizer
              exploded all over our TV sets
and the naked, napalmed little girl
       ran screaming through our magazines,
              a time when I could still stop on the street
to talk to Bob or Wheeler or Jim.

Did they die still believing the lies they were told?
And how can the living truly heal their wounds
when the same sort of lies are told time and again
by politicians in the fall of the year?