On the cliff above Long Pond
standing well back from the edge
to defeat my natural desire to fly
and my natural tendency to fall,

my natural longing to be the next
in the historical record, the next 
big item in the local paper, the next
small article in the regional news section

of the big-city paper,
the next completed form
in the state’s file of recent deaths. 
That’s what I’m protecting myself from —

posterity.  As long as I hang back
I’m safe.  Not a soul will ever know 
I was here.  I’ll be just one more pair
of feet on the trail leaving a small,

near-untraceable trace.  I came here
for the sense of smallness gained
by standing high above the much larger
world.  I came here to forget myself

and now I’m consumed with the threat
of becoming much more; perhaps I can regain
that diminishment by inching closer,
closer…trying to disappear…

Watching the parade
automatically
I mistrust

the clergyman
walking amongst 
a crowd of children
in the parade;

the admiral
speaking of sacrifice 
from the podium;

the policeman
approaching the kids
holding the Puerto Rican flag
on the sidelines;

the politician waving
and shaking hands
along the route.

I’m wrong
to suspect automatically
that nothing is what it seems,
but after all

this is 
an all-American holiday, and I’m
a Yankee Doodle Dandy,

Yankee Doodle
do or die.  I grew up
with an erratic uncle and
I wasn’t born yesterday.

I’m wrong
to automatically suspect
anyone of anything but

isn’t it just as wrong
that mistrust has so often been
well founded, cheapening
my honest Yankee Doodle joy?