Delaware Morning Poem by Natasa To

He walks with the weight of decades

stitched into the seams of his suit—

Amtrak miles humming in his bones,

Delaware mornings in his voice.



A man of long corridors and longer grief,

who learned the language of loss

and still chose the grammar of hope.

Ash and oath, winter and promise.



He speaks in the steady cadence

of kitchen tables and union halls,

where coffee cools beside the paper

and the future is argued kindly.



Time has silvered his edges,

but not the ember at the core—

a stubborn light against the dark,

a belief that bridges can be built twice.



History presses like a restless crowd,

yet he answers with open hands:

not perfect, not thunder,

but a weathered lighthouse

keeping watch along a fractured shore.