Eighty Eight Bars

Robert Merrill, requested
by someone on a
sentimental journey
yesterday on NPR Sunday,
with that Cole Porter staple,
the one a head-shaking
Tony Martin described
as eighty eight bloody bars,
that one, it goes on forever,
our night of tropical splendor.
It began as I was leaving home,
and as I reached beach parking
at Hapuna twenty miles later,
marathoner Merrill, 
gasping his last,
had finally reached his heaven,
after stopping for an umbrella
rum drink or two between verses,
now just sucking at a straw,
and waiting for the orchestra 
down by the shore to quit playing…