Reflected Currents From The Boston Skyline - Poems

By Patrick Cronin

In Reflected Currents From The Boston Skyline -Poems, the City of Boston is celebrated as a powerful, illuminating, electric force in the lives of many who live in Massachusetts: "Coming or going, near or far, you are connected to Boston one way or another. It goes with you always, like a second, beating heart through which the most important moments of your life will be filtered."

 

Evolving from a poem the author wrote after a conversation he had with his teenage granddaughter one summer night while they were stopped in traffic on the Tobin Bridge, Reflected Currents From The Boston Skyline - Poems speaks of the power of light in our lives. From "Big Papi", a poem honoring Red Sox Hall of Famer - and  Boston Strong's -David Ortiz,  to the final poem, "Jonathan", an elegy of light, Patrick Cronin's  chapbook draws from the poet's experiences growing up near Boston as a son, brother, husband, father, grandfather, and friend.

   

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patrick Cronin
• Release date: Apr 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223686071

Book preview

Boston

Growing up in Massachusetts, you learn to celebrate the power of Boston. Coming or going, near or far, you are connected to Boston one way or another. It goes with you always, like a second, beating heart through which the most important moments of your life will be filtered.

The Thump of Life Electric

We want the surprise to be transitive like the impatient thump which unexpectedly restores the picture to the television set, or the electric shock which sets the fibrillating heart back to its proper rhythm.

Seamus Heaney

Big Papi

I was happy when I heard

David Ortiz was elected to the Hall of Fame.

First ballot, of course.

Best clutch hitter I ever saw

was Yaz in ’67

until Big Papi came along.

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Ruth? I’m not that old.

And they say Ted was injured in ’46,

but I wasn’t around then either.

I saw him hit though,

and he was the greatest.

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But Big Papi? When we needed him?

Why, with a flick of a bat

he would shoot an arc of diamond fire

across a sky as blue as hope

to disappear beyond a green wall

or ignite a Roman candle

to flash in the night

and sail high, high up into the bleachers.

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Up, up,

everything would soar up in an instant:

home runs, the concrete thunder,

the surge of our communal blood

pumping through arteries

to the synchronized beats

of collective hearts

as we all tried to leave earth together,

our hands going weightless

to stretch upwards in thanksgiving,

and finally the tangy sweet hail

of popcorn, Cracker Jacks, and spilt beer.

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And there are few

who have risen to the moment

more convincingly

as when Big Papi bellowed,

––––––––

This is our fucking city!

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The entire world heard us that day

as we stood and cheered,

our laughter a river mud mix of relief and hope,

and the confirmation of what we had always