12,991. ROSETTI WITH FORCEPS, 1974

ROSETTI WITH FORCEPS, 1974

Forty-Five years ago at least,

I was running between places:

First one, with a big-city gal, and

then another, in a faraway rural 

oasis. The Civil War graveyard,

then, out Elmira way, ended up

as my home, or nearby, leastways

to say. Peacocks and Austin Healeys.

Mission cars parked next to the lake

while some journeyman preacher went 

on. The church-breakfast ladies asked

me what I was doing there, and I said,

'Learning the language, if you don't

mind.' My wife just laughed it off.

-

Then we went up to Sullivan's Monument,

another church-party-picnic day. I did

kind of want to ask them what they were

doing there, in turn. But I didn't, and

some thousands of dead Injuns rolled

over. The quaint, urban, country wives

just staggered on. A baby doll image

of Jesus in sight, while I gazed down

to the flatlands in fright. Not for me

the give, or the take. (Where was the

night? I could not wait.)....

-

Back on the flats, the garden of civil, by

the graveyard of goodness. Or, maybe 

again, that Garden of Good and Evil?

Dante Gabriel  Rosetti? Peacocks and 

Pre-Raphelites? Where else was I to 

turn? What else was left to learn?