JOHN MILTON'S MILE
birthday Dec. 9

We visited Plymouth Plantation
Thanksgiving week
with several students
from many nations
we read from "Paradise Lost"
knowing your birthday
is coming up
and show pictures of you
from the public library
with your early writings
believing you are in heaven
by angel wings
we toss stones in the Atlantic
with messages in green bottles
enlightening the outside world
about us in the Fall of 2015
we approach a deer
who blinks at us
under brambles and branches
at the quick waters spring
overflowing on this holiday
O John Milton, you voyager
reach out us to us, join us
in a chorus of English majors
we are no longer strangers
of your Puritan friends
now in New England
as pilgrims and companions
celebrating your poet life
and sing a birthday hymn.