To Terri on Her 50th Birthday
(poem in progress)
here is the electoral map of Notre-Dame-de-l’Ile-Perrot
its acid bars sunlight through the slats of the adirondack chair we shared picnicking in March
you in sealskin I in suede neither then endangered
a champagne splash on a chair arm
clouding in the cold
sketching the window onto Atwater’s ascension of the mountain
from which had we climbed it
could Toronto have been seen
or the square sisaled balcony where
we first showed darling Mary to the nestling sky
sweet unrainy
when came we to still our house then expanse now small
a playhouse of boards much trod its bills little changed
until from your determination
her own light
Alice
passages of nannies friends constant and tried
and family ah family
decades of tended grass spilt wine hard words
and soft
dog and cat we loving embrace our lovely daughters
your daughters T your face quickened lit
beholding them