‘On Super Bowl LI’ and Other Poetry by Reid McGrath

On Super Bowl LI

I went to bed. The Falcon’s made it 28 to 3
and yet I never should have doubted the poised Tom Brady.
Halfway through the third-quarter he had a ways to go.
I woke up in the AM and was quite flummoxed to know
the “Comeback Kid” achieved what’s now the greatest comeback in
the history of Super Bowls: “The first overtime win!”
He was an underdog at first back in 2002.
A gamer, clutch, cool as a cuke, wearing red, white, and blue.
Now Alpha Dog, his successes provoke large love or hate;
but either way, with “damns” or “ahs,” one must admit he’s Great.

Glacier National Park

One mountain goat traversed a precipice.
I thought about how close we live our lives:
two double-lines away from the abyss,
one gaffe too many or two nodding eyes.
We young live in a cloud of nonchalance,
a heady high the old often condemn.
(And yet some saints displayed insouciance
when persecutor’s persecuted them.)
My confidence would get its gas from faith
and works — to have a moral certainty —
that when the ground gave out my contrite wraith
would join the angels in eternity…
I watched the goat traverse a precipice,
while (not quite there) I roved upon thin ice.

Laurel Blossoms

They are exotic
and simple at the same time.
That is elegance.

Reconnaissance Missions

Some agent or some spy on foreign turf,
I’ve traipsed the City specter-like, alone.
On Coney Island I lolled by the surf
and futilely assayed to skip a stone.
I too have trekked down darkened urban streets
and felt how I’ve felt in the Northern woods
ten miles back, when all the light retreats,
when either fear, or plucky resolve, floods.
I’ve played the covert poet on the greens.
In Central Park I sought a daffodil.
But a park’s ends are hindered by its means.
It tries to imitate a nonpareil.
My heart’s held its allegiance with the land.
I’ve liked the City but it’s built on sand.

Reid McGrath is a poet living in the Hudson Valley of New York.