Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Christmas 2015

Friends and Family,


We are sending you our Christmas greetings from Nyon Switzerland with a video e-card, which we posted on Youtube, here.  The text and photo appear below.  Best wishes for a Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday,

Ed & Shirley




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I don’t remember his name
or the title of the poem,
but I remember I liked his work
and I’d like to add his book
to the wishlist
my children have asked me to update.

So I search.
I remember he taught
at a Midwest university,
or at least west of New York,
but "Midwest poet" turns up
Kooser and some others who
are not him;

"Current American Poet"
yields a long Wikipedia entry
with a phone book style menu
of letters.
I think his name begins with G or B,
but none of the names ring a bell.

So I start my own first letter game,
like a hymnal of first lines
that I do not remember,
but hope one will call up the first
notes,

the priest behind the screen,
the patron saint,
a fisherman with his net
Magi intent on a star—

I know he is there;
I can feel him next to the brain
location that is
next to "American Poet" who I
read recently,
or at least in the last few years.

Wasn't his poem
in one of the daily almanacs
that arrives faithfully each day?
So I try "poet George"
because now I’m convinced
the G is a George.
I begin flipping through the screens of daily
Vignettes,
hundreds of them in a reverse history
of sorts.

And that is what I want to do,
to go back
and say "A Ha,"
I remember you;
you were here all along.


17 Dec 15
Joyeux Noel et Bonne Année

Poem © Copyright 2015, E. G. Happ, All Rights Reserved.
Photos © Copyright 2015, Shirley Chen, All Rights Reserved