Tag: Sorbonne

TRUMBULL STICKNEY


There is a marble top chest that fills 
the small wall to the left of the front door. 
It’s walked by multiple times a day, 
but unless you do the dusting, 
you forget it’s there.

Standing in front of it now waiting on Dee,
I realise there is a crystal lamp and three books
that stand by themselves, thick like upright bricks,
no bookends, makes us look well read, 
haven’t looked at them in years.

There’s Texas by Michener, 
The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain, 
and The Oxford Book of American Verse.
She says she’ll be a few more minutes, 
this is not a rare occurrence. 

I take the Oxford back to the couch and let it 
fall open to Mnemosyne by Trumbull Stickney.
There are 1132 pages, what are the odds
that it opens to Trumbull Stickney.
Trumbull died at thirty of a brain tumor.

He graduated Harvard in 1895, did his doctorate 
at the Sorbonne on the Bhagavad Gita. 
Had he lived longer he would have been one 
of the greats, his work did not have time to mature. 
I’m wondering what matures the work of poetry.

Certainly, sitting in this tome at the front door,
aging like fine wine, tannins have smoothed
the legacy of Trumbull’s goddess of memory.
During the next wait, while Dee primps, 
I’m going to randomly open to a short story.

I lived in Texas for three long years
and saw the movie with Glenn Ford,
it doesn’t hold a candle to Mark Twain, 
and can’t touch what is now the undying remembrance,
the myth of the near greatness of Trumbull Stickney.

           
PALM READER

Well, let’s take a look. 
You haven’t had to work too hard.

     I haven’t dug graves or felled trees, 
     but I’ve always worked hard.

I didn’t mean you weren’t productive, 
I just meant they’re smooth, not roughened, 
and of course, at your age, a little pruney.

     Well, now that we have that out of the way, 
     what about the future?

First the past. You don’t anymore, 
but you used to bite your nails and cuticles. 
You have an attention deficit and an inner tension. 
You also have a soulmate, someone who has 
loved you unconditionally your whole life. 
That doesn’t make you exclusive, but it is rare.

     Right on both counts. 
     There are children being slaughtered 
     and neglected. It bothers me …. a lot.

It will take time away from you. 
You should do what you can to step away 
from these thoughts and this bitterness. 
Find a happy place as often as possible.

     Are you suggesting political ignorance 
     would make me live longer?

No, that would not make you happy, 
but you dwell on not being able to do anything, 
and you can. You can care, as you do, 
you can also spend more time focusing 
on the good around you and less on the evil. 
And as we both know you have the hands of a poet.