The Grand Conversation
By Paul Muldoon
She. My people came from Korelitz
where they grew yellow cucumbers
and studied the Talmud.
He. Mine pored over the mud
of mangold- and potato-pits
or flicked through kale plants from Comber
as bibliomancers of old
went a-flicking through deckle-mold.
She. Mine would lie low in the shtetl
when they heard the distant thunder
stolen by the Cossacks.
He. It was potato sacks
lumped together on a settle
mine found themselves lying under,
the Peep O'Day Boys from Loughgall
making Defenders of us all.
She. Mine once controlled the sugar trade
from the islets of Langerhans
and were granted the deed
to Charlottesville. He. Indeed?
My people called a spade a spade
and were admitted to the hanse
of pike- and pickax-men, shovels
leaning to their lean-to hovels.
She. Mine were trained to make a suture
after the bomb and the bombast
have done their very worst.
He. Between fearsad and verst
we may yet construct our future
as we've reconstructed our past
and cry out, my love, each to each
from his or her own quicken-queach.
She. Each from his stand of mountain ash
will cry out over valley farms
spotlit with pear blossom.
He. There some young Absalom
picks his way through cache after cache
of ammunition and small arms
hidden in grain wells, while his nag
tugs at a rein caught on a snag.
Copyright Credit: Paul Muldoon, "The Grand Conversation" from Moy Sand and Gravel. Copyright © 2002 by Paul Muldoon. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Source: Moy Sand and Gravel (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2002)