Roy Beckmeyer's lyrical poems bring the reader delight as his words roll around in your mouth, stir the imagination and evoke strong memories. Roy is a favorite poet for many Kansans, indeed a state treasure.
Celebration
You must hum your own lithe youth,
sing your exuberant childhood, raise
high the roof beams of coming of age,
shout the jubilation of adulthood.
Celebrating the exigencies of growing old,
you should trumpet the coup of you—ancient,
drone the dirge of you—dying. Then beam
the symphonic, operatic strains of you,
God’s angel at last, flying.
Artifact
If you were gone, I would be brittle ice, a
thin globe of glass surrounding filaments
incandescent, aging bone absent calcium, a
mere artifact you had dipped into liquid
nitrogen and struck, your arm swinging
back and high above your head: the sudden
hammer blow of your leaving.
