The Library Card in My Rabbie Burns
Salem, Oregon
It was the glossary that first caught my attention.
Auldfarran means sagacious. Fissle is to fidget or tingle.
A snuff box is a sneeshin-mill, and I�se means I shall, or will.
Someday, beside a cabin in the sun by a stream,
I�ll settle in with Rabbie and listen to him sing.
But this card alone�s enough to justify my dollar-fifty,
to recall the girls with the book upstairs reading,
the wary, troubled boys outside thinking,
and war-time voices speaking softly in the kitchen.
Skinner, Burns, Hammer, Doud, June, and Eileen,
Gwelda, have you seen Nancy, or Margaret Asbury?
And which or none wha thinks himsel nae sheep-shank bane,
or the buirdly Salem sons, strong, well-knit, and husky?
I�d like to know, before I go, to hear dear Rabbie sing,
before winter steals another fall, and we never see the spring.
April 20, 2005
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Also by William Michaelian
POETRY
Winter Poems
ISBN: 978-0-9796599-0-4
52 pages. Paper.
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Another Song I Know
ISBN: 978-0-9796599-1-1
80 pages. Paper.
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Cosmopsis Books
San Francisco
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