Image Courtesy of gfpeck. Shared via a Creative Commons license.

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he got children

he got children inside
he got children outside

inside outside
outside inside

a Mobius strip of love

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Two Old Letters Between Two Islands

Surviving letters of two dim ancestors
Reveal vivid glimpses of their lives
One hundred forty years in our family’s past.

And through her letters of 1869
From Mary’s Dale, St. John, I find myself
In love with my great grandmother Eliza.

From the self-portrait of her words before me
A slim woman of twenty-two appears
In a white cotton dress, wearing a broad brimmed woven hat,
A mind image that tows my heart through three generations.
Her 19th century language, manners, modesty and charm
Are appreciation and pleasure to my 21st century eyes.

In her husband-to- be (my great grandfather)
One old photo’s reflections of myself,
In genes, in temperament, in looks, in name
One hundred three years separate his birth from mine.

His only surviving letter, (St. Thomas of 1869)
Asked her mother’s consent
To his proposal of marriage to her “very amiable daughter.”

They had five years of love in marriage.
Eliza died on her birthday, her brief life
Began 10 February 1844 and ended 10 February 1874
Survived by her husband and a single son aged three.

Eight years later her widower husband died

That mother less, father less son – this “orphan” –

In his life time

Fathered a dozen children

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E. O. Kean is a poet whose work has appeared in Yugen, Antioch Review, Bitterroot, and other “little” magazines. He was born in New York City and spent his childhood in the U.S. Virgin Islands.