A Day Late

So sorry.  I meant to let everyone know that yesterday I'd be in Westlake visiting my sister and wouldn't have an opportunity to update this blog.  The class reunion committee meeting was Tuesday night and we stuffed the invitations, labeled, and stamped them for mailing this week.  It's in September but our reunion chair is very experienced at her job and she knows that an early warning works best.

One of the most wonderful things about life is its connectedness.  About six years ago, I was able to find an address for my former Children's Literature professor at Kent State, a class that I loved and took in Spring 1968.  Jacqueline Jackson was an inspiring teacher and one no one would forget.  She had an easy, down-to-earth sense of humor and a sense of appropriateness for everything big and small.  Surprisingly, I got a response and we've been corresponding off and on since.  Jacqueline is in her 80s now, and was driving between her home in Springfield, Illinois to Vermont once every year until about four years ago when she had to give it up. 

She writes a poem for the Springfield newspaper and then collects a grouping of them for an annual collection.  My copy arrived a few days ago.  So with a little background information about her, I thought you might like to read her April 11, 2013 poem.  Jacqueline lives in an old house on 5th Street in what they call Enos Park.  It's an historic neighborhood where Abraham Lincoln once walked, lived, where he once visited her home.  His house is close by in fact.  For Jacqueline, the death of her daughter three years ago has been very difficult.  She is incredibly close to her four children, having raised them by herself.  I should also mention that Jacqueline was a professor at the University in Springfield for many years and she is much loved by the community.  Apparently, Jacqueline recently read a book called, "Team of Rivals," about Abraham Lincoln.

north fifth street poem #17 - Jacqueline Jackson

seventy score and seven runners passed
my door this morning many in blue t-shirts
the Lincoln half-marathon:  I've lived
in lincolnland over 40 years now; one gets
inoculated though I used to take classes to
his home on Mary's birthday give cake to
passersby I've been slow to read teams of rivals
finished it last night fought tears throughout
his later years the repeated deaths fought the
depths of my child's death though I have not
walked through battlegrounds strewn with
bodies sprawled thick as stones on a scree
touching the dying no wonder his profound
sadness punctuated by the humor he needed
to endure no wonder mary was as she was I
see her now living across this street a recluse
dishonored estranged from the remaining
child who committed her I see Lincoln in my own
foyer 1860 exchanging banter with the workmen
he who shook 1700 hands in a white house hour
it's a true legend this house visit it fits and now
I watch 1700 runners, thinking how different
our country would be had he lived had his
children lived he of the 70 times seven
griefs did not spurn individual ones how I too
would be different were my child here loving
this spectacle: my house, our street, these running
feet we are all hallowed by his presence among us

On the envelope of the book of poems, Jacqueline writes, "If I were still driving to Vermont, I'd come see you."