Sunlight dances
                    in the first breath of morning air
                    and the day comes and passes
                    and no one speaks.

                    Are they so young, I wonder,
                    that they cannot remember?
                    Or is it that they just don’t care?

                     A lifetime ago I remember a day.
                     Cold and clear and hard as winter.
                     November 22.
                           1963.

                      I sat at a small desk.
                      In a now dimmed classroom.
                      Erasing letters,
                      Printing carefully,
                      A fifth-grade spelling test.

                     The school Principal spoke from the wall
                      a new-fangled intercom.

                    He said
                    The President has been shot.

                    At recess I walk and walk
                     to the front of the school
                    where the flagpole was.

                    Did the flag still fly?

                    Late afternoon
                    I stand by the screen door
                    of the kitchen porch
                    and wait for the paper.

                    What would it say?

                     That night on the CBS news
                     I watch a famous newsman
                      cry.

                     A grown man.
                     On national tv.

                     He wipes his eyes and says
                     The President is dead.

                      I am only ten
                      but somehow I know
                      my life will never be the same.

                      And I will never not remember.