Charlotte and Nathan Exchange: 50th Anniversary
- Charlotte and Nathan Exchange: 50th AnniversaryCharlottesville, Va
be advisedMy passport’s greenNo glass of ours was ever raisedTo toast the Queen
As king and queen to epiphany you should go to Nevis for sun Alabama for shade (the wizard’s advisements); banking and fugitive criticism money and theology the sanctified; deadly combinations both Yonkers and the Bronx (when the Bomber was still champion) the sport of bones now our wishbone and therefore unbreakable.
Once, on the Erie canal, you were both on iceskates: 1946 surely surrounded by siblings/goslings: instantly Uncle Tom’s Cabin comes to mime: HB Stowe/A. Lincoln the ice floes of dancing (a twin set of islands) to Canadian freedom (or is it the Caribbean?): all skaters were geese, and because on the ice and not aloft very unYeatsian, not a word from Lady Gregory; [End Page 367] the war was over yet Sister Goose (mistress of folksay) was swimming on the lake.
Nonce for the theme of reflection, the mirror “After Long Silence”— talk after rootbeer and cider: the framed tales of each self as themselves, as an endtable to two hearts lured into the other’s notes still brisk and alive in the singing.
Michael S. Harper is author of several volumes of poems, including Images of Kin and Healing Song for the Inner Ear. He is I.J. Kapstein Professor of English at Brown University, where he teaches courses in creative writing and literature.
