Dear Sveva I'm Sorry

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NaPoWriMo 2021 Day 11:

"Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a two-part poem, in the form of an exchange of letters. The first stanza (or part) should be in the form of a letter that you write either to yourself or to a famous fictional or historical person. The second part should be the letter you receive in response." 

Every once in a while in a life you come across something or someone that speaks to you so directly you cannot help but listen. I've written about Sveva Caetani before, and as it's a nice day and I'd like to get out in it I'm just going to copy (and edit) what I wrote Jan 1, 2018:

Sveva Caetani came into my life one winter day in 2000 when I happened to be walking down Baker Street in Nelson and there in a window was one of her paintings. I went in (it was a little ad hoc gallery that wasn't there very long and I don't remember its name). I looked at all the paintings. I came back a week or so later and looked at them all again. The show was up for a month or so and I went whenever I could. I bought the book that went with the exhibition, ninety dollars when I didn't have the budget for ninety dollar books but I couldn't stop thinking about the paintings. I poured over the book. I was struck by the story of Caetani's life, most of which was spent in Vernon, B.C.

One day I was curious as to whether anyone had written poetry about her so off I went to the Google mines and discovered that Jack Pine Press had a chapbook of such poems by Daphne Marlatt. I tried all kinds of ways to get a copy but it was long sold-out. Some years later I asked a mutual friend if they'd connect us via email. Daphne and I corresponded briefly and while she didn't have any extra copies lying around she very kindly sent me a file with the text of her poems so I could read them. I printed it out and it's tucked inside the Recapitulation book. Since then Daphne has published a larger collection of poems called Reading Sveva. I continue to look at the pictures of her paintings in my book. Best $90 I ever spent. (The italicized lines are mine from previous poems.) 

Dear Sveva, I'm sorry

     I didn't know you when you were still alive

     didn't know you lived scant hours away

     didn't know you were a prisoner in your home.

          How I could have related

                    felt like a prisoner in mine those days

                    my mother disapproving of everything

I did

I said

I wrote

                                 only her music making her happy.

Dear Linda, don't be sorry

          you learned

                    as did I 

     to guard your secrets

               spin them out later

     when the time was right.

                                Years and years of mother-stifle

                                our mothers had demons 

                                taught us to battle our own.

    I saw you see me 

    the first time you saw my paintings

                        knew you were kindred

                        knew you would write me poems     

    how did one go—

       the day the muse came

       did you cry out in anger

       or fall to your knees

I think you know.

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