for E.
Goethe, his young guide’s oar nearly silent
as it slices through Swiss river current
pulling them away from the ship’s party,
scratches dark lines over parchment. Hardly
hearing fading laughter, his ear intent
on assonance, soft clicks of consonants,
trying to stick within the scheme, still he
struggles to find worthy rhymes for “Lili.”
When through, he slips folded sheets in his vest,
staring toward shore, feeling he’s done his best.
Two centuries later, in Strasbourg, France,
a researcher shakes, now grasping by chance
two stained, creased love poems, never displayed.
(The news came a week before your birthday.)
Roger Armbrust
March 23, 2000
