It's now been 40 years since the death of Roberto Clemente. Here's my poem from 20 years ago.

More remembrances: 

https://twitter.com/#RememberingClemente

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Arriba Roberto
(On the 20th anniversary of the death of Roberto Clemente)

Esta noche yo escribo sin luces
this night I write without lights
esta noche yo escribo sin luces para usted
for you Roberto

has it been 20 years since you died that New Year's Eve on your way to Managua,
after throwing boxes aboard the plane
to feed and clothe the earthquake victims there?

did you know you would die that New Year's eve on the relief mission?

two premonitions

the wire service photo that went out
after your three thousandth and last regular season hit
your face was sad and gray in the black and white photograph
your friend Pancho Coimbre saw it and said,
"Este hombre esta muerto."
Your friend Pancho Coimbre saw it and said,
"This man is dead."
Three months later you were.

That November you told Vera, your wife,
as you awakened,
"I just had the strangest dream.
I was sitting up in the clouds, watching my own funeral."

You stand far away from the plate
men in scoring position
your bat high above your shoulders
ready to whip it across and through the ball
as the fans shout
Arriba Roberto!

you stand under a fly ball in right field
two steps back
ready to catch it on the run and fire home

and on one father's day
you scribble words on an envelope's back to your sons

Quien Soy?
Whom am I?
I am a small point in the eye of the
full moon.
I only need one ray of the sun to
warm my face.
I only need one breeze from the
Alisios to refresh my soul.
What else can I ask if I know that my
sons really love me?

And at your memorial in San Juan
in the same church where you and Vera were married
as your teammates and countrymen gathered,
Vera walked the beach of Punta Maldonado futilely hoping
as catcher Manny Sanguillen dove searching into the sea
as your spirit, a nun would say to Vera many years later,
was carried by the ocean to more places.

Something I wrote in 1991 that i thought I'd share given the headlines. Hope you enjoy:

I saw the first remnants of the Gulf War's true destruction
     in a Long Island beauty parlor
as a little boy, five years old,
sitting on the couch next to me,
having just gotten off the school bus,
opened his camouflaged plastic bag,
placing a canteen and helmet on the glass table,
among the Glamours and basketful of Christian literature.

He took his plastic camouflage vest out of the bag,
the vest's small white tag saying "Made in China,"
and he placed the vest on,
and hung his black binoculars ’round his neck,
as the woman next to me tells of war toys coming back in vogue recently,
as the child places the gray plastic hand grenade pin between his teeth,
tossing the grenade at the manicurist's table
(she doesn't blow up, though).

"I don't know where he learned how to do this," his mother says.
"We don't let him watch t.v. or bring any Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stuff in the house.
He does watch the news, though," she reveals.

"My little Stormin' Norman,"
a smirk on her face, a glint in her eye,
"I bought it for him, you know."