Art Mourns But Hopes/Searches

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Years after my young love left me, I knew I could no longer

live if I did not go in search of him. It was hard to leave

home with no hope of ever having him for my own. Rumors

in the north sent me south to seek for him on the beaches

of the Mexican Gulf. From Florida to Louisiana, I followed

the unmoving stars above us, both and all. The Mississippi

was yellow and slow. Oaks there wore rags of Spanish moss.

Whispers of his passage sent me west where hot desert

convulsed into mountains. I missed him on a mountaintop

in the Rockies, but his footprints were unmistakable

in the snow. When I came upon the Pacific, I was nearly

seduced by its windgnarled palisades.

Had I come this far

on the memory of a youth, his arms hard as awe, eager

for my kisses, but shy of congress? Oregon was far away,

its rocks and ways oriental to the East Coast eye, and

my love had long before passed by. Columbia was a rapid

river and mighty. Clowns and acrobats rode its banks

on donkeys that brayed with delight. In a city in Minnesota,

I was sure to see him again. But I was too late and he

was gone. In the land of ten thousand lakes, on every island

I found immigrants who had come for political asylum.

In their native lands they’d been imprisoned for activities

against their governments. Some had even arrived as ghosts.

In the Minnesotan woods they shouted their blasphemies into

the deaf forests and yes, they recognized me from my

photographs. Chicago and St. Louis were urban centers

where loud music came from portable stereos and I was

mistaken for the law. Was my hope of him I loved so,

unfounded, I wondered as I stumbled by an empty playground.

A fisherman gave me the dappled portrait of a rainbow

trout he’d caught to eat. Faces and voices like his

kept me going. One night I slept in a field in Gettysburg,

dreaming of wars past, present, and future.

In the dream,

I saw the siloes of Iowa change into those that hold most

terrible missiles. I saw my hands with others’ on a

barbed wire fence, but I couldn’t tell which side we were

on. I saw those siloes as the future site of wreathlaying

and speechgiving, America’s concentration camps…

…Awoke, startled and shaking, ashamed, and always sad

not to have dreamed of my lost love. A Vermont friend

I hadn’t seen for years, whose burned-down house had been

rebuilt, said my love had visited without speaking of me.

I returned home, sore and unsure of welcome. My son

was playing the piano as one daughter sang and the other

danced. I am not emptyhanded though emptyhearted.

Before I sleep I tell myself, I may yet dream once more…

If he loved me truly even once, he may come to me again.

By L. Shapley Bassen

From: United States

Website: https://lsbassen.com/

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