Terry Savoie

                                          Some died, and how
      I will not tell, since I should speak of weather.
                                                   Alan Dugan

The star point guard in high school had nothing left
      when he was shipped home after coming
unglued three months into his tour of duty loading
      body bags into the bellies of cargo planes bound
from Da Nang Air Force Base to San Diego. Soon after, he
      found himself living once more in his mother's Chicago
basement, wrestling with life & a string of shock treatments
      followed by a part time job to-ing & fro-ing wealthy
widows up & down a gated elevator of a high rise luxury
      apartment building overlooking the city's Gold Coast.

But all that living happened before he made up his mind
      how best to settle his score with the Almighty
in a casual, Sunday afternoon stroll into Lake
      Michigan's icy cold waters.
                                                                  Live long enough
& each of us carries stories such as this that repeat
      in an endless loop in our heads as we walk
along, sometimes on, sometimes off the beaten path.
      Not to disparage that boy's God-given talents, I who
once envied him so, nor am I demeaning his hard-earned exit,
      but tell me, why should we forever be so morbidly serious?

Didn't you notice how our weather's turned as of late? We
      could easily kill what's left of this morning talking
about that Canadian cold front barreling in now out of
      the north with those bitterly cold winds dominating
our forecast. Would you or I find ourselves any the worse
      in the end? Just an innocent question, my friend.