Harold Bench, Too

Someone has torn off the plaque from the bench,
Exposing a dark patch on the bleached wood.

That's all the memorial left Harold,
Whose parents had this bench built, in his name,

At the fish-rich mouth of Silverton Creek
On a rocky beach by the walking path

With a perfect view south across the lake,
Before, someone said, they left town for good.

This is the sixth year I've come to this bench,
Spring, summer, fall, to sun after a swim

Or to sit alone and study the lake
Like a monk or a Romantic poet,

As if I ever had the discipline
And sweet, melancholic trust in Nature

To ever master either profession,
That enlightening, terrifying awe.

I just watch or talk to the passers by,
Who invariably ask if I've swum yet

Or how much, and how cold it was. "Cold, eh?"
They fish, throw sticks to their dogs, fly model planes,

Take their kayaks out, occasionally
Get into the water and swim like me.

"Cold, eh? But invigorating. So clean!"
I agree. One of them tore off the plaque

That declared "In Memory of Harold."
A few years would have done it anyway.

Let's not get too self-righteous or morose.
I never knew Harold. I like this bench.

This is the second poem that I've composed
To praise it while sunning myself on it,

And maybe the hundredth time I've scrambled
The brown-shelled eggs of small ideas while here,

Drying off, shivering, sweating, stalling
As long as I can, hiding out from life

By living under the full, slow movement
Of the shadows around the sundial pines,

By diving under the fast, cold moment
Of a rush from the creek hitting the lake.

It's not Harold that I knew, mourned, and loved.
This bench is Harold and his pilgrimage

From human meaning to human meaning,
To defacement, to weathering, to change.