[Critique Group 2] 304-word poem for May 22 critique session

[Alice Massa]

*Dreams, a Revised Edition:*

**

*When David Hartley-Margolin Narrates My Next Book*

a poem by Alice Jane-Marie Massa

After our time together in the early 70s

and then annual letters

tucked inside artistically unique Christmas cards,

our lives intertwine again

as our books cross in the mail--

mine sent from frozen land beside a Midwestern lake

during the Christmas rush,

yours sent from a southern state beside the Atlantic

during a re-awakening spring.

My book, six-by-nine, soft cover;

yours, an ample and impressive

twelve-by-twelve tome, hard cover

with glossy jacket,

beautifully thick pages.

Mine is memoir and holiday poems;

yours is the biography

and art history of a painter

from Orvieto, Italy--

someone you had come to know and admire.

For the release of my book,

I made the announcement

on my low-traffic blog;

your book release was a gala affair

at a performing arts center

on your university campus.

I am never surprised by your success:

I smile at it,

am immensely proud of you.

While I can be so competitive,

I never had a desire to compete with you.

Although we both grew up

in rural areas of Indiana,

I always knew that you ,

my dear friend,

were playing on a higher artistic plane.

Your world was of the visual arts;

my visual world was...

melting, melting.

So, you settled in the South;

I traveled to the North.

Then, after all of these years,

because of these two diverse books,

our lives intersect again.

Now, we both are on that retirement stage--

where dreams are reconsidered and revised.

You say you will not write another book;

you will spend part of your time--

not returning to Umbria--

but on your once-upon-a-time Hoosier farm.

"Did I tell you

my dream is

that David Hartley-Margolin

will narrate my next book?"

May 12, 2018, Saturday

ajm321kh at wi.rr.com

copyright 2018, ajm




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