Twenty-five, (it’s reputation easily tarnished)
Is known for silver, soft
Metals needing polish and restoration,
But our twenty-four glitters with precious
Stones like Essen and Paris and Rome; semi
Precious stones like gardens, forests, mountains.
We’ve stood at low-tide and watched
As water bent the edges of river stone
Flat, oblong, eraser-like, fits my palm
like your hand.
Shoes off socks in hand we cross
The creek feeling the pebble stones
Poke and bite our feet, the portage
pained and hesitant but the opposite
shore another adventure.
Like an ice-rink or race-track
We cover years circling back
To the beginning, annually crossing
The start, each time a mile stone.
How did Essen get in there?
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I wrote that poem for my partner on our 25th anniversary. Our first 3 years were spent apart due to education. I remained in the states, but our first year he was in Germany. He was born in Germany, in Heidelberg; his grandmother (of whom he was very fond) lived in Essen. On one of my trips to see him, he took me to Essen to meet his grandmother. And talk about irony! The 3 of us watched a German translation of “The Killing of Sister George!” Paris and Rome? They gush romance. Essen? Very fond memories of just the beginning of an unexpected lifetime of being in love are there, in Essen. Thanks for asking.
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