Xmas
Down Fifth Avenue in a taxi,
2 weeks before Xmas,
my heart is
gone, gone away,
far away
There are
stars, lights, illuminated
frosting all over the fronts of
buildings,
everything is
an offering
( for us, to buy )
But even alone now,
a rising excitement
possesses me,
exhilaration,
warmth & I can remember when it was
all celebration for us,
both of us Jewish
but an excitement possessed us,
those years
of your health,
years of our striding
about the city together
choosing,
thinking: a gift for this one or that one
& you spent hours
inventing red & green scribbles
to cover your cards with:
declarations [of]
love & joy in friendship
& branches
of green & holly were hung in the house
& what
I miss now, the sound of your voice
your laughter
[love from Hilda
December 25, 1982]
Note: A day or two ago, Lynda and I visited (once
again) the Strand, over on Broadway and came home
lugging books. In one of mine (*Ironwood* 20, found
on one of the outdoor $1 shelves and purchased to
replace my long-lost copy) was a twice-folded sheet
of 8 1/2 x 11 paper upon which the poem above was
typed, the bracketed portions written in in ink. At the
top center of the page is a piece of scotch tape that
looks like it may have been used to hang the poem up
somewhere, since there's nothing at the bottom of the
page to suggest it was used as a seal. At the bottom
left of the inside cover of the magazine, written in ink,
is "Christmas 1982" over "NYC," and in the right-
hand bottom corner the name Judy Epstein.
I don't know if this poem was ever published, but it
might be one of a series of elegies Morley wrote for
her husband Stefan Wolpe, who had died in 1972.
Any information would be appreciated.
1/17/05
Hal
Halvard Johnson
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website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/
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