In The Land of Crinoline

Here I am hanging out with the shorter side of the family.

Left to Right: My mother, Olga Butler Hopper, her mother, Susie Redd Butler, 

my aunt, Marita Butler Brimhall, myself: The Bride, twin cousin, Mocella Brimhall,

cousin Marilym Brimhall not in a good mood, twin cousin Marita Brimhall.

This was taken the day of my wedding, June 21, 1955, or perhaps the day before.

I am wearing one of my favorite dresses with more expensive fabric than I usually used.

It was a modern cityscape print in browns and tans with touches 

of bright peach and turquoise. Fitted bodice, full flared skirt. 

No crinolines; Marilyn was horrified and loaned me a slip for under my wedding dress.

I had remembered I made this dress after I married; I know I bought the fabric at my favorite

fabric store in Provo, Utah (a woman names Crilla worked there, but that is another story) 

and I was only at BYU for that school year, so I must have made it then. 

I wore it for years and years, and still wish I had kept a piece of the fabric.

When she learned I had not planned a reception 

(I had always planned to get my PhD. before even thinking about marriage!)

Aunt Marita stepped up to the plate and made me an outdoor party

complete with home-made hamburger buns. Lots of family friends came.

My mother bought a cake with a white sugar bell on the top.

This picture was taken on slide film with my mother's Contax camera, 

perhaps by my father. It was underexposed, but I have lilghtened it.

CROSSROADS

My body, now that we will not be traveling together much longer

I begin to feel a new tenderness toward you, very raw and                                                                                                          unfamiliar,

like what I remember of love when I was young---

love that was so often foolish in its objectives

but never in its choices, its intensities.

Too much demanded in advance, too  much that could not be

                                                                                         promised---

My soul has been so fearful, so violent: 

forgive its brutality.
As though it were that soul, my hand moves over you cautiously,

not wishing to give offense
but eager, finally, to achieve expression as substance:

it is not the earth I will miss,
it is you I will miss.

Louise Gluck

A Village Life, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009, page 62.

   

One critic has called this poem perhaps the most moving in this moving volume of poems. 

In three three-line stanzas and two two line stanzas, the ideas are beautifully expressed.

It is worth it to read the whole book! This is what I recommend! It is not a terribly long book

and is work by a poet who has mastered the lyric peom.  jhh