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First Day of Summer

From Frankford’s Haiku Master Jack Hohenstein:hohenstein026

Azalea hedges,

Shapes tamed by human fancy

But not the colors!

My father got his first concussion here.

How many young knees

Scraped on Whitehall’s cindered fields

Remember the Games?

So much rain this Spring.

The narrow garden

Gets ten minutes of sunshine

And uses each one.

Everything growing so fast everywhere.

No Trespassing sign,

But the dandelion seeds

Cannot read a word.

Our fathers.

I could hear Dad laugh

As I wiped bird dropping

From his plain gravestone.

From One Temperature by Jack Hohenstein.  Copyright 2005 Jack Hohenstein, Published by Full Court Press, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

There are copies of Jack’s book available at the Free Library branch in Frankford.

3 thoughts on “First Day of Summer

  1. Is the Hohenstein’s from Penn Street? Father or son? if so I’m check this book out!

  2. Yes Jack is the father and lives down on Penn Street. His son did the artwork for the cover.

  3. rare talent

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