THE TWO LISTS

 

“Ready for number seventy?” 

my reunion letter asked. 

Two lists of classmate names were enclosed. 

 “Still Here” and “Gone”. 

I found myself in the “Still Here” list 

along with 88 other classmates. 

The “Gone” list had reached a new pinnacle of 114. 

They compile these lists every five years. 

This was the first time 

that the “Gones” have out-numbered the “Still Heres”. 

I checked out the “Gone” list first. 

More startling, more immutable. 

I couldn’t figure out why people 

were on one list versus the other. 

Both lists had star athletes, 

bright kids, dumb kids, 

health nuts, fast food addicts, 

religious types, nerds, trouble-makers.

Impossible to predict who’d wind up where. 

Eight of my friends were “Gone”. 

Grant, Gus, Nancy, Rick, 

Turry, Huntz, Jerry S., Hal. 

Eight others were “Still Here”. 

Carol, Toddy, Earl, Jerry B., 

Butch, Sally F, Sally H, Duke. 

At least I’ll have some chums to talk to. 

What all this boils down to 

is that the Menominee High School class of 1955 

is slowly but surely shutting down. 

There is a steady flow from “Still Here” to “Gone”. 

Nobody ever goes the other way. 

We might have one more reunion, 

possibly two, 

but after that there will be only one list left. 

The most that I can say 

is that we’ll no longer be split into separate groups.

Just one big class together again.

THE WINTER STORM

 

At noon a whirling flake or two 

but by nightfall the world 

was obscured by a thick blanket of white. 

The lawns, the rooftops, the sidewalks, the shrubs. 

Sparse traffic on our street, 

creeping along, fifteen miles per hour, 

no stops for red lights. 

I put on my new winter coat, 

Green Bay Packers knit cap, 

sweater, scarf, gloves, boots. 

The snow came up 

to our Miniature Schnauzer's chest 

so we sludged down the street 

in the ruts left by cars, 

the salt burning little Iko's paws. 

In the morning I shoveled the drive 

so we could get to my wife's doctor appointment, 

then the porch steps for the mailman. 

Huffing, puffing, 

heart thumping, 

eyes tearing from the biting wind. 

Thrice-daily forays with Iko, 

freezing in the morning, 

dark nights the worst. 

The sidewalk paths 

quickly turned to ice. 

Two slips, two tumbles into the snowbank. 

The neighborhood homeless woman 

set up her sleeping shelter on the bus stop bench. 

Twelve degrees, I feared for her life. 

A cruel winter storm, 

alien, inhospitable. 

Nature turned against her own progeny. 

A stark reminder of one's mortality.