Friends,
This is an original poem that I wrote for my grandparents recently. This is simply a snap-shot of how they met and a brief picture of their serendipitous meeting and uncommon love. Hope you enjoy!
It was Nearly a Century ago
By: Cameron Morgan
First drafted: 5/27/2013
Last Edited: 6-20-2013
All Rights Reserved. Copyright R. Cameron Morgan. 2013.
It was nearly a century ago
Sweat-choked sun-rays bore down up-on Ford-worn streets,
You could walk miles up those staircase hills-
Climbing toward some stunning dream.
An engine of churning opportunity,
Store-room like a pre-war Airforce hangar -
Endless stereotyped rows of hollowed suits
And regimented, clean-cut servicemen-
Enlisted by the need for money or honor-
Ready to give their lives in the service of one phoenix day.
She could’ve been mistaken for a model,
A front page starlet bathed in the black and white-
Lights of creased magazines-
Stately, irrepressible, a beauty
With a future-fixed gaze.
She was scribing numbers and smiling
Like an impatient sun;
Burning too brightly for the gossamer shroud of night
To long smother, and so-
When nestled home in the more suburban streets of Salt Lake City,
She sang loudly through the tennored throat of violin-
Strumming summer strings like seasons had no end.
Her dream was the baritone prose of her father:
Steady hands still shading the contours of
Her pointilist verse,
A melody mellifluous in the rhythmic heart of time.
Yet another sun-stroked day,
Fire-heels striking anvil pavement:
Red glow and incandescent echoes.
She gently swung-open the long-rusted
Malt-shop door; old-flaky white and plaintive hinges
And touched gently-down…a malt; Old-style Vanilla Bean ice-cream.
The violent heat slowly strangling the sedentary fans,
But the soft chill of the confection
Consumed her with joy-
Lost as she was,
To the promise of its transitory eternity.
He didn't often trek up those labyrinthine streets,
But convention seemed silly in that shattering heat.
He was searching for something beyond the sun-soaked horizon
Respite from lectures and lingering worries long after hours-
Somewhere to rest his weary soles and paper- paste-dry tongue.
He spotted the malt-shop, sugar-hungry eyes straining
To see the strangely-sweet scented oasis;
Almost broke into a smile as he sauntered up the last steps-
Like training camp all over again;
His big-smiling, big-toothed friends, laughing sanguine-splashed- white
Teeth stained with strawberry malt and bough-picked cherries.
The door ululated in a joyful squeal
As the first soldier, a jock and a drunk, caught his eye.
Slumping like a tree felled by tempestuous wind
Into that dusty-hard backed chair,
A sound slap warmly greeting his sweaty back.
Awaking from that moment as if a dream,
Shaken to reality by glowing eyes and candied zephyrs:
He saw… her,
Phosphorescent smile like the ever-opalescent moon-
Overcoming the thin veil of opaque night.
He knew from that second that he had to know her,
Learn her name; share a solitary moment that would
Mean everything in its subtle transience.
He held her glance like a reticent hand,
For just a second before turning as if he hadn't.
Sipping his straw-strewn malt stronger now
To drown out the sound of her syllabic gaze.
Instead he turned, steady tremored heart trembling
With a smooth hello.
She was rightfully reticent; having known the Army-type:
Shiny boots, slicked hair and slicker souls-
So she kept her distance with an askance glance…
Still something told her to listen:
Strangely, when he asked for time to spend and a night to share
She accepted, assured by his honest handshake,
Unwavering, like the love that began 3 weeks later
With their fire-fly marriage-
Enduring 70 years with calloused hands
And un-exhaustible wells of understanding.
He took her eager hand to the alter
And wrote every day while swept away
By the undulating tides of war.
Every letter stained with pacific ink,
Like strawberry-malt-spotted teeth.
70 summers, 70 rapturous falls,
70 Winters too cold and too long-
And a love that has endured them all.
