At the Far End of a Sturdy Branch - Steve Trenam

[Larry Robinson]

At the Far End of a Sturdy Branch
	  for Fran Claggett-Holland

You, 
	who knew Robert Frost,
	and bought a Picasso 
	with money you didn’t have, 
now greet me at your door
with a Saluki and a Whippet,
in a dress windswept
with charcoal brush strokes,
a necklace which only 
your neck could honor,
and a smile to welcome me in.

The house brims with art.
A collusion of couches and chairs 
brace themselves to accommodate 
an entire tribe of poets.
The butcher block, scored
with decades of Madge’s slices
in concert with flour from your hands.

As you speak of your two only sons, 
both poets grown grey,
and Madge behind a permeable
membrane of memory—
I hear the music of
“the end of your beginning,
measuring out the days 
grounded in rhythm and rhyme.”

At one point I envision you 
holding a cup of hot chocolate,
marshmallows melting on the surface,
afloat on the second movement 
of Beethoven’s Pathetique.

While you leave a lifetime
of astonished poets in your wake,
(every encounter a potential student)
I catch a glimpse of what 
my life could have been,
and might still become.

	- Steve Trenam

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