by Linda Simone
For James Doohan, 85, d. 7/20/05
When I was a teen,
You beamed on to my TV screen
spoke the only Scottish I knew.
In 1966, you and the crew
my United Nations.
Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott ?
Chief engineer on the starship Enterprise ?
How did you keep your matter
circulating when you were James Doohan
When 6 D-Day bullets struck
your right middle finger
like a Klingon attack?
With galaxies about to collide,
how did you weather
Conventions, hailing
fans, exulting in adulation?
In 1993, an honorary degree
from Milwaukee School of Engineering:
He brought the field to the forefront of pop culture.
40 years at warp speed --
me, trekking toward AARP
and you, ashes to be launched into space,
the rest saved for the sea:
Captain, the engines canna take nae more!
Linda Simone's poems have appeared in Midnight Mind, Westview and Potomac Review, and in anthologies including en(compass) and Essential Love: Poems about mothers and fathers, daughters and sons. She was former poetry editor and managing editor for Inkwell, the literary journal of Manhattanville College and now serves as faculty advisor. Moon: A poem, her first book for children, was published in 2002.
