Elegy for Mister Rogers
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Elegy for Mister Rogers:—In memory of Fred Rogers
Fred came daily, met me at sofa—we played on train tracks with tigers, lions, and mailmen.
His smile, an infection—a disease for the better. A white man slumming in a black boy's never-
never, lands softly. Life: was Fred. He gave me songs, colors, words—friends to wake up to.
Now, I wake to ghost—red sweater—hate that his voice roams new boulevards. I cannot boss
this spinning top in me whirling like so many for reparations of hope—a bronze of lost pennies
adding up for high-life tomorrows. Fred is dead. The rappers aren't spitting any verses, knowing
they all grew up with "It's such a good feeling to know you're alive" as a backbeat, before Run
DMC, Eric B. and Rakim, Tupac and Biggy. He's without me to smile back at him this time,
to say, "Hi neighbor. It is such a good feeling." Why should it surprise, upset me—an anchor kills
scavengers when it hits; heads turn away at 6 and 10 time slots. Fred kicked it with me, loved to "rock
the ave." A rot in me bubbles. It's winter, now— a Philly blizzard, no move. "Mister Rogers?
Mister Rogers?" No one's singing. The jazz waits, antsy in empty studio. The piano looks for bits [End Page 803]
of keys to work—for crescendo, a crumb. Trains derail in Illinois, Kentucky, and in Maine to ticker-
tape him—no time slot for his majesty—just hard- core PBS burning a soft valid voice on celluloid.
Curtis L. Crisler, a lecturer at Indiana Purdue Fort Wayne, has published The Ringing Ear, L'intrigue, The Fourth River, Only the Sea Keeps: Poetry of the Tsumani, and other periodicals and anthologies.
