For Bruce Wallin

Steve Hodin went to his bookshelf for Elizabeth Bishop, but found his poem For Bruce written the spring after Bruce's death in 2010. Bruce, we all miss you so much. Steve, thanks for this.

For Bruce

I watched -- just the other day --
A small scrap of paper blow across Copley Square.
The wind was ferocious, unrelenting that afternoon,
Upturning garbage bins, tattering the mayor’s banners,
But there was no storm to speak of, no discernible engine or source.
The wind raged, unbridled, under a baby/clear blue sky --
Uncommon, almost mystifying,
Seemed to herald some event or untold finale.
From my vantage point beneath the vaulted arcade,
The wind-tossed scrap of paper (yes, that’s my topic, my organizing device)
Shot passed me and lodged
For a surprisingly prolonged moment on a hand-rail just to my right,
Suspended, inexplicably, as if grasping on to the wrought iron,
Held fast by the wind and the perfect angle of incidence.
Or was it my imagination and the slanting late afternoon light?
Rocking slightly, defying the laws of gravity,
It was a bank receipt, I noticed,
Like so many I have obtained and discarded over the years.
Not a talisman, such as some message in a bottle,
But a tally, a simple accounting in time and place,
A banal set of numerical facts.
No sooner had I turned to admire this extraordinary sight,
But the wind shifted slightly,
Or maybe the scrap of paper slackened its grip,
Either way, it disappeared overtop the fountain,
Dry now for winter,
And across Boylston Street,
Swelled, as always, with the haphazard traffic of our daily lives.
Turning back to the square, I witnessed my children,
Fashioning themselves into human kites,
Laughing,
Marveling at nature’s power, her impartial potency.
And I thought of the onrushing spring,
Ushered in, briefly, on the wings of this mighty wind,
And the unerring momentum of our lives.
We move on
because we must,
Neglecting from time to time to pen a get-well note,
To pause for a drink with a friend in some snug corner,
Out of the wind.

A question for you:
How do you balance or weigh a solitary soul,
Buffeted by gusts both fierce and mild, over the course of a lifetime?
By the days in the full blush of health, raucous and proud,
Or by the days unwell, contemplating your frailty?
By the scores (even hundreds) of students you taught to unravel the complexities of governance,
Or by the two of your own whom you taught to ride a bike and to be kind to animals?
By the profound, publishable thoughts, well-spun and persuasively cited,
Or by the idle chit-chat of the weather or the Red Sox, a little bawdy and uncouth?
Aye, it’s both;
Nay, it’s neither.
I suppose one precious life is entirely unlike a scrap of paper in the wind.
But I am just glad I was there
When you paused for that moment
On the hand-rail
Near to where I stood
In front of the church
On a windy day
In Copley Square.