I want to be
the doll I recall,
not the mouldering rag
I’ve become,
afraid of the sun,
rooted to the shelf,
dusty head waving
like a funhouse image,
stitched on smile
twisted back upon itself.
I want to jump
from my careful stance,
prop up my wobbly legs
and dance – or run.
I want to look rot
in the eye and spit.
I want to quit
turning myself inside out
to expose the ragged seams,
to find the means
by which the sawdust pours.
I want more.
You can’t go home again, Thomas,
You can't go home again.
Too many things are at end, Thomas,
Too many days and too many nights,
Too many hills we’ve had to climb
And too many times descend.
We’ve too many stories lived and told
Then placed up on the shelves;
Crossed too many windows and too many doors
To go back where we were before --
You can go home again, my love,
You can, of course you can!
The apple tree’s grown bigger now,
With branches spread for reading;
The berries bear the scars of birds,
And grapes boast in their swinging.
The childhood circled magic ring
Stands open as it did;
The little house where we first met
And yet,
Too much has fled our grasp, Thomas,
Too many things have gone.
Too many days and too many nights,
Too many lives and too many doors
Are ashes of what went before.
You can't go home again, Thomas,
For all your words can say.
No matter that it breaks our hearts,
That life has passed away.
Let the juice
Of this ripe summer
Drip from your chin
Onto your crisp white shirt.
The vine grows full
And no amount of tying
Can hold a weighted globe
From its determined fall.
Slice these days
With your sharp knife,
And sink your face
Into the sweets of time.
Only your breath,
The blade you wield,
And your crisp white shirt
Will remember
The red, ripe seeds
That bled from
This abundant
Summer vine.
This poem is occasioned by the discovery in an old stagecoach stop of an unopened letter from Mrs. Mary C. Mann to Mrs. William B. Taliaferro, wife of Confederate General William B. Taliaferro, written
The letter is property of my father, amateur Civil War historian, who traded an outboard motor for the find. It is now in the hands of a preservationist at the University of Virginia, but its fate rests on Dad’s decision either to donate to the College of William and Mary, where Taliaferro’s papers rest, or to hoard his find. Time will tell.
The details in the first two stanzas are gleaned from the letter. The commentary of the last two stanzas is mine. While I revile Mrs. Mann’s venomous sentiments regarding the North and Mr. Lincoln’s Proclamation, I sympathize with all women who have worried for their men and lived their lives helpless of the forces that make the rules. As human, we must try to understand those whose ideas are not our own.
The Letter
A clock ticks minutes, days,
Generations, centuries, more…
Behind the mantel, lodged within a crack,
A missive waits in silent, sad dismay,
While Pippins, those not fallen and decayed,
Make flat array on proffered china plate,
And garden gay with flowers not yet nipped,
Soft Dahlia and Verbena, ever bloom
And ward away the threat of early frost
Forever in the peace that holds off Doom.
The little ones stay well, the doctor ill;
The neighbor’s youngest daughter still is gone.
Your son remains enthralled by soldier’s turn;
The servants settled, yet you feel alone.
Your husband’s horse once more from you bespoke;
Your visit to the city unfulfilled,
Your thoughts on Proclamation, “vile, extreme,”
Disdain and fear of changes here revealed.
Oh, lady, have you wondered all of time
That words of honeyed warm Virginia Tide
Should fall on ears turned deaf to soft, sweet sounds
And bring no answering measure to your side?
Have you long feared for horrors of the march,
Stampedes of dreadful, frightful things to come?
Would you have been at peace if you had known
That brothers here once more would be as one?
Your genteel letter sent with faith and hope
To silence anxious hearts and fears allay
Was lost to chance behind a piece of wood
And holds your heart in stasis here today.
Go softly to your rest with this sweet thought:
That one who reads the words that went astray,
Long years beyond your joys and fears and love,
Feels these as you, a time and tide away.
In a heartbeat
on a moment
in a flash
on a dime
in a jiffy
in an instant
in the twinkling of an eye
like nobody's business
a bat out of hell, a bull at the gate
at the drop of a hat
like quicksand
everything
changes
now
.
