This happened long ago. I sit alone
in our Polk Street den. John Denver’s guitar
intros his loving ballad: “Annie’s Song.”
Our daughter Catherine, in her fourth year,
scurries from playing in her room, climbing
in my lap; lays her head back on my chest
where, as an infant, she’d sleep to rhyming
lyrics I’d invent. She honors his blessed
voice, matching it with the slightest whisper,
then listens with the focus of angels.
I feel his deep passion as well as her
breathing. Then smile as her voice is compelled
to caress his closure: “Come love me again.”
She crawls down. Runs to her mom in the kitchen.
Roger Armbrust
August 8, 2011
