"Oh Gosh" by Chad Lahr

“Oh Gosh”

I sat.
Sipping my favorite porter from a bendy straw

Atop my lighthouse, for it was mine.

My sanctuary on the coast, gazing in the general direction of Hawaii.

Or so I hoped.

The usual scene on the sand below; children with buckets...

Building their own Atlantis, soon washed away.

Others racing kites through the surf,

Not yet dreading the homework and chalkboards that plague the week.

Parents likewise, worry free (for the moment) from bills and the IRS.

This is an escape, for me it is my home.

A bit of crust, hardened from the sea air

Tossed to the birds. (Their lunch as well as mine.)

Mere bread to me, but they flock as if it were cake crumbs.

(From King Henry the 8^th’s birthday, now wouldn’t that be something?)

For once, I would like to really see something

Spectacular out here in this waterlogged desert.

A mermaid, perhaps.

She’d come up out of the sea mist through a rainbow,

Like a lawn sprinkler oscillating a spectrum back and forth.

“Oh gosh!” I’d shout, too shocked for words
Nearly falling from my chair,
Knocking a can opener from the table,

Clambering over paint cants to reach the telephone,

And call Abhishek...

Or anyone.

But this is just my lighthouse,

Icicles of salt line the railing

As I sit by my radio, the faint voice of Obama

Changing into a fuzzy weather report.

I turn it off.

I listen.

The surf rolls in and out like a bow across a cello

And then I realize, I don’t need a miracle.

No hero is going to ride out of the waves

Like George Washington, holding a litter of kittens.

These stilly strings of ideas undersell this wondrous place,

I can brilliant my own lighthouse.