Entertainment

September Falls Is No River's

drop but my son's name for acorns
falling from white oak and bur,
the apples plopping Delicious,
our Cortland's plump thump. You can -
with risk - walk beneath September Falls
as you might beneath the watery ones.
Acorns ping through branches, Plinko
on The Price Is Right, but what you win
just smarts your head. I've never been
Newton-ed by an apple, but yellowjackets -
those cider-drunk eunuchs - make testy combat
for the ripe ones still hanging within reach.
I've never been to war either, which is to be
not exactly Newton-ed but bombed
or plunked in a way more final.
Our world's lucky not to have been Teller-ed
by an H-bomb, Edward the "Father of,"
who slept with one eye open
for the terrible Russians. Radio says
he died today, though probably he died a bit
when nuking Oppenheimer, his former boss and pal.
Teller, how'd it feel to be hailed the father of maelstrom,
to plant a deadly seed with your brain and not
the old fashioned way Stalin's daddy did?
Tomorrow you'll make The Times' obit page,
merely ink and recycled paper.
From the grave, you'll someday slaughter legions of innocents,
or, who knows, save them - your MAD nightmare
made good was any dream.
For you I'll blow this Morning Glory's trumpet,
this bloom, Teller, whose blues blow only gold.

Kevin Stein has published ten books of poetry and criticism, including the essay book Poetry's Afterlife: Verse in the Digital Age (University of Michigan Press, 2010). Among his recent poetry collections are Sufficiency of the Actual (University of Illinois Press, 2009) and American Ghost Roses (University of Illinois, 2005) – winner of the Society of Midland Authors Poetry Award. He teaches at Bradley University. Since 2003, he's served as Illinois Poet Laureate.

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