May 1944

May 1944

Softly the sun set in May 1944
Over the Atlantic, over the Pacific,,
Over the Mediterranean  and Black Sea--
Over the White Cliffs of Dover,
Hiroshima and Nagasaki--
Over Berlin, Paris, Warsaw and Gdansk.
And West of the Hudson, and Mississippi
It spun its golden threads
Into thick folds of magenta and orange.
And my mother and father
set the table for supper when
its red eye sank down
Behind the hills of Dubuque, Iowa.

Susan Rederus Chamberlain