The below poem by Margaret McGlynn '86 (Tigerlily MD '84-86) was sent in by Rich McGlynn '60: "All below focuses on my daughter Margaret’s poem about a Soon Alums Concert she attended with guys from the late 60s. The Olympic person she refers to is Dorothy Hamill, Nassoon Hon., daughter of great Nassoon Ham Hamill."
Attenuated gents arrayed in school ties
Some totter, one in a wheel chair, many still in golden voice
gathered to croon melodies of yearning, tomfoolery,
desire and wonder, to bask in glory days.
Among stucco domes and spires, a mythic Mission past,
Huntington-plundered masterworks for wallpaper
Beneath a velvet pall that kills sound, they sing
braving elaborate arrangements, often well.
Men’s voices vibrate through chests and hearts.
Warm old organ pipes with smiling faces.
Singing "Tenderly" and "The Night Herder’s Song"
"Give your mom and dad my best," they say, each one.
Dinner arrives on storied plates of white privilege
of how Dad saved their teenage marijuana-smoking asses
from jail, and it was all such fun. How mighty fine it is
to be white, and male, and not even know your luck.
But an Olympic daughter of a now-dead singer
finds me, hugs a picture of her father to her chest
and tearfully says, "...all the things I never asked him.
oh, the things I’ll never tell him. Thank your Dad for me."
This splendid dying world, these odes, love harmonized,
inescapable, fading joy, tiger lily petals curling, wilting.
So I will walk again with Dad between spire and tower,
beneath vaulted stone, to blend my voice with ringing lyres.
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