INDEPENDENCE DAY
The wind and you played in my hair,
You lambent in the moon.
The night arranged as by design,
Mysteriously boon.
Afresh the breeze and warm our hands,
So lately introduced,
Traced so gently new found lands,
From tyranny aloosed.
While all around with fire and bang
Our freedom was proclaimed.
A nation's liberty was meant,
To us, two hearts unchained.
(1982) To continue the story from yesterday, some 24 hours after that first kiss, my new love and I made a plan to watch the Fourth of July fireworks.
It was really more her plan than mine. My default tendency is to be a rule-follower. Hers is to make everything an adventure, get the best seat possible, and just go for it. If she had a motto, it could well have been, “All things are permitted unless expressly forbidden.”
She lived across the street from Minneapolis’s Calhoun Beach Club, which in those days before high-rise condos sprung up, had a 360-degree view of the city. She had already explored the building and discovered how to get on the roof. (I mean, no one had told her she couldn’t!)
You walk through the lobby, take the elevator as far as it would go, locate the door to the stairway, and then ascend the final story by way of a metal ladder.
I was skeptical about getting away with it. But from the beginning, she had a way of drawing me outside of my comfort zone. (Maybe that’s what love is all about. Opening yourself up to possibilities of connection, hoping against hope you’ll be met with openness, despite the danger of having your heart broken.)
At any rate, love can make you do crazy things, so we set out, hauling a big pack with our picnic provisions, and two lawn chairs.
Fortunately, those were earlier, more trusting times. No guard in the lobby, no code needed for the elevator, and no lock on the door to the roof. The hardest part was climbing the ladder with all our stuff.
But when we walked out onto the roof in the slanting light of late afternoon, the view was marvelous — lakes and trees and parkways arrayed out below us. In the distance we had an unobstructed view of the tall buildings of downtown.
But the real show began when it got dark and the fireworks started. We could see fireworks in every direction. Some near, and some more distant. It seemed every municipality in the Twin Cities was putting on a show. We surely had the best seats in town.
There are no photos from that night. This was before we all had cell phones and we tended to experience things firsthand, rather than through the lens of a camera. So it’s for the best. The one photo I have from that month is attached to this post. You can see why I was smitten.
Forty-two years later with that woman, and there’s never been a dull moment.
Note for poetry nerds: For years I’ve been a little troubled by departing from the rhyme pattern in the last verse. But I’ve resolved that it’s better to use exactly the right word rather than rigidly follow the rules and use almost the right word.
The Calhoun Beach Club in later times.
Poetic Champions 