The Blue Angel

They’ve cut down more
of the old trees in the park
and the ground is scarred
where they used to stand,
another reminder
of how things change,
like the scrawny boy sophomore
whose papers I used to grade
who showed up yesterday,
a strapping proudly married man,
to fix my leaking faucet.
Just blink, it seems, and
everything becomes something
it wasn’t before.

But as I walked in mourning
over those trees
and this life that passes by,
there he suddenly was,
cruising ‘round the corner
into my line of sight—
suited up in his yellow helmet
and blue jumpsuit,
blue wooden wings
fixed firmly to the sides
of the bicycle he pedals so proudly
every Saturday morning
while the ancient boom box
perched in the back blasts space music
and the blue and yellow flag
flutters triumphantly over him.

They say his father was one of the
Blue Angels I remember seeing
in an air show that made me gasp
in wonder when I was a little girl.
And when I was a little girl
and saw this man pedaling his
airplane bike so solemnly by,
I’d laugh and call him crazy.

And he probably is
in the general sense of the word.
But this morning,
after decades have passed
and he’s still pedaling,
I call him lovely
and wish there were a way
I could tell him
how his constancy gives me hope
and makes my mourning heart glad.