KINGS - Poem

 

KINGS

 

(copyright 2011, by Dave Kiffer)

 

They were much taller back then

Now stoop shouldered, thin of hair

They are ciphers inside the throng

As if the energy of the crowd

Could dissipate them any minute

 

I remember being struck dumb

By their towering shoulders

Their arms like great wings

And I clung tightly to

My father’s sweaty hand

 

Now I brush past them

With a short glance

As my own son adores

Their successors rising

To lead the cheering crowd

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

OHASHI HISTORY STORY

  80 years ago local Japanese families Were sent to internment camps Ohashi s were one family that came back Eighty years ago, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which led to the imprisonment of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. The February 19, 1942 decree was put in place because of concerns that first and second-generation Japanese-Americans would have divided loyalties during the War, even though there was little evidence at the time to support those concerns. In 1976, the United States government formally apologized for the internment and in 1986, it authorized payments to the surviving Japanese Americans. More than 50 Japanese residents in Ketchikan were swept up in the internment, including the Ohashi family,. The Ohashi 's had first come to Ketchikan in 1900.  Jasmatsu "George" Ohashi was from Kawanoishi, Ehime-ken on Shikoku Island and he came to Alaska to t...
Read more

Gravina: A Tale of Two Islands

  Gravina : A Tale of Two Islands - History Story Considering that Ketchikan residents spend a lot of time staring a cross Tongass Narrows a t Gravina Island, we don't of ten know much a bout it. Yes, we take the a irport ferry a nd we fly out from the a irport. Maybe we have driven to the end of the "Road to Nowhere" or we have gone deer hunting on High Mountain. Residents of a certain a ge still talk fondly of the community picnics a t Black Sands Beach. But in general, Gravina is a like a prop to Ketchikan. Something to stare a t on a sunny day, but not much else. Of course, there is more to Gravina than that. For example, did you know that Gravina is two different islands ? Well, not now, but it used to be. First of f, there a re three distinct parts to Gravina that a re a ll geologically separate, a ccording to the 1973 federal report "Geology of Gravina Island, A laska." There is the eastern side, which is similar to the geology of R...
Read more

KEtchikan Pilot Found Millionaire's Plane Crash in Boca de Quadra in early 1950s - History Story

 http://www.sitnews.us/Kiffer/HermanLudwigsen/032520_herman_ludwigsen.html    Ketchikan Pilot Found Millionaire's Plane Crash in Boca de Quadra in Early 1950s   Most area residents are familiar with the plane crash of legendary pilot Harold Gillam in Boca de Quadra back in 1943. But almost exactly a decade later there was another crash in Boca de Quadra, barely a mile away from where Gillam's plane when down. This one involved Ellis Hall , the multimillionaire owner of Texas-based Condor Petroleum. Hall was on a vacation with his wife, two daughters and a family friend to Southeast Alaska. After visiting Juneau, Ellis was piloting his de Havilland DH 104 Dove, a large twin engine plane. The plane would disappear after leaving Annette Island on August 17, 1953 leading to a month long search, before the wreckage was found by Ketchikan pilot Herman Ludwigsen . Hall had landed his plane at Annette because the weather was beginning to deteriorate but wa...
Read more