My First Dress

My First Dress

I had never bought a dress, and

I went full bore, damn the torpedoes!

At Nieman Marcus, the gowns were

severe, angular.  Hey! Where was

the lace, the chiffon, the taffeta?

Where was the pink, the turquoise? 

And the prices!  So high and no trim?

Chastened, I found a smaller store.

and got serious because I liked the

shopgirl.  What a sweet giggle.  What

a sweet little . . . well . . . you know.

Suddenly, forget the dress, I was

glad I’d worn my tighter jeans.  But

she was all laughing business, and

I was her star customer.  She fitted

me up with all the rhinestones, swishing sounds, 

and tutu-like adornments a man could want.

Back in my jeans and T, with a huge,

glittering box, she rang me up and

kissed me on the cheek.  A week

later, we went out on the town.

I had the gown of my dreams and she —

she had a really great tuxedo.

                  July 2019

Idyllic Vacation

Idyllic Vacation

when you are swoop-cycling down monitor pass

a feline falcon on the wind and

i am stutter-cycling down like a male chicken

(as dirt from road cuts blows in my face

that's how windy it is) and asking myself

how do i get myself in these situations?

and when i ask you (at the bottom where you've been waiting ten minutes)

if you mind being married to a chicken

and you say no it's ok and actually you love it,

it makes me happy.

when you suggest a hike up to a lake

(emigrant lake: and why would any emigrant or

immigrant as the case may be conceivably want to go there

he or she would just turn back to whatever teeming shore)

and this lake is at what must be (to me) 12,000 feet at least

and you suggest this because it's too windy to cycle

and (to me) it is a hurricane inside a dungeon

what with the clouds like stone lids on the holes

between the mountains (i think the right word is

oubliette) and i'm about to suffocate with claustrophobia

not to mention it is cold (did i say that yet?)

and my stomach is saying why why and you say

it's an adventure! and fly upwards

while i lag (of course) and once in a while

you say yoo hoo! from up ahead between the trees

where who knows what branch will fall and hit

your head or what gross monster maybe even a stag

with antlers with really sharp points will charge you,

i laugh and eventually i think (even i)

i am actually having fun.

and when we are planning to bicycle happy us

in the eastern sierras and we are staying at a condo at

maybe 8200 feet (a bad sign) and while driving up to it

the problem (for me) was definitely not

that we would drive off the mountain into some chasm

(maybe without a bottom who knows i would have fainted

before we hit it anyway but i'd have screamed a lot

i shudder just to think) but that we'd

drive into the mountain as in the car's front end would be smashed

and then the inevitable happened that is

an untimely snowstorm and no chains (not that with them

i would be content and feeling safe) and we drove down

to town where there was no snow (sigh of relief)

and we are going to drive by way of reno because

all the other passes to our home were closed surprise!

and looking back i saw "our" mountain enveloped in

a snowstorm like a swollen turban totally localized because

of course the gods had aimed it at me and then we got a call

on my cell i should have turned it off

from the people still there to say that you had left your purse

in that very same condo that we had just escaped and

we had to go back at great cost to my sense of well being

because it was like returning to a flooded submarine

at the bottom of the sea that we'd just left in a lucky bubble

after the depth charge hit and i could feel the last pass of the icy claws of fate,

i thought this is a really funny adventure as in ha ha

and i had to smile and laugh and of course i repeated over

and over (out loud) that you were a fool and you laughed too.

when in vermont it was really cold unseasonable

and you say let's go on this hike and i should have known

and it is gray and really cold and those lids are on the

mountains again and it doesn't matter that we are not

at 8,000 feet in the sierras because we are at 1,000 feet

yet very close to the canadian border and it's a legend

how cold canada is and it turns out that to reach

the trail head we have to drive (thank god you were driving)

nine miles minimum on a dirt road (dirt) and go up

a steep hill on the very same wet dirt road (and people live out there and

each and every one of them has guns and dogs and is very independent)

and we have this economy car that we rented that weighs

as much as a piece of newspaper blowing in a gale

on the boston waterfront where the weather can be quite unpleasant

and we reach the parking lot and it is actually snowing

before we start the hike and i am doubtful (i exaggerate

because i am beyond doubtful) and you say

it's an adventure! and off we go and eventually

it is beautiful and there is snow on the ground

but leaves have fallen from the autumn trees

on top of it so that there's a big white carpet with a

colored leaf design and you are doing your yoo hoo!

thing but not from so far away because it is not

easy going and you are so happy and content

and i am happy too (especially when we have to turn back i admit

after a couple of miles) but still really happy

even after thirty nine years of repeated adventures.

Lawrence N. DiCostanzo, Nov. 2 - 3, 2009

Elijah Hid by Ravens Fed

Elijah hid by ravens fed.

In a frozen meadow

a distant waterfall rumbles, and

a man sits on a cold stone wall

next to a raven flown down

to stand at rest beside him.

The lustrous black, the ruff

upon  the  breast, the spray

of feathers over nostrils

and legs and feet,

the  intermittent yellow

line across a jet eye,

the slow turns of the head.

We sit, suddenly old friends

looking into the middle distance.

I expect the baritone croak of answer:

Why did your people feed Elijah?

(The title is taken from the New England Primer's entry for the letter "E.")

Jesus Comes for the Cave Men

Jesus Comes For the Cave Men

Dawn on the plain, and gray sky.

The grasses bend in light wind,

cold enough that breath is smoke,

and hands are cold.  Though skin

on legs and arms is chilled,

they stand still, a countless number,

at least three hundred.

They've come from shallow pits

In caves and under overhangs,

past the rocks laid down on top

of them with love. The grave ochre
still paints them though bit by bit
it's rubbing off.  They wear their best:

lustrous furs and soft leathers,
the finest workmanship in beads
and amulets.  They have their bags

of  beautiful tools, sharp chipped stone,

fine pointed needles of bone.

Expectancy is in their eyes,

and ignorance of what will happen.

As sky lightens and the air softens,

they fill with hope, like the hope

for fatty meat, for living children. 

for the warmth of fire, for the melt

of ice and snow in spring.

And children’s limbs ache to run.

A light blurred by the clouds spreads

quietly like the blessed magic of fire.

Together, they begin to drone

the beautiful song that they know.

Then, the clacking of stick on stick,

against their growing rumble.
A small crowd, happy.

The light spreads, shines brighter

than yellow sun, and yet they can see.

I Married a Cro-Magnon Woman

I Married a Cro-Magnon Woman

Even though you wear petite,

I should have known.  

The way you hold your head, 

the focused movement, 

thrift in speech --- 

All were clues.  

When you muscled the case of wine 

into the trunk while 

I was calling, "Wait!  Wait!"  

When you dug up the whole garden 

with a rusty shovel.  

When you dragged the garbage bins 

up the driveway two by two --- 

I realized then that twins would be no problem.  

You'd suckle one at each breast 

while chewing leather to downy softness 

for me to wear on winter hunts.  

You'd make our autumn fire, 

spinning one stick on another.  

You'd keep it going throughout the winter 

to cozy up our share of cave.  

You'd heat up water with hot rocks 

and use the waiting time 

to ply your awl for boots.  

You'd laugh.  You'd swat the kids.

You'd be ever looking out 

for fat and protein.  And so in spring 

you'd heft a load, and off we'd walk 

to where the fish were running.  

I'd use up secret hours 

to shape a necklace from 

a thousand shells I'd found 

and managed to hide from you.

Virginia v. Loving

Commonwealth of Virginia 

vs. 

Richard and Mildred Loving, 

Defendants

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Loving,

I can comprehend aloneness,

but your aloneness is too hard

for me. Never symbols, you were

just a name, just two persons

among the millions.

Obedience, endurance,

were the only choice, I guess.

There had to be anger, too,

some grudge in the obeying.

Later years, all the dust laid down,

your lives went on so quiet.

And so I'm left to wonder

what you cooked, and ate,

how you kept your house, where

you saved your money, worked.

I know that you had children, 

a common having, as are long years

of widowhood and tending graves.

Now I've come to comprehend

your mystery, the final aloneness —

just the privacy of ordinary lives, 

the equal, sometimes joyous,

hum-drum of us all —

coffee in the morning, toast,

fix the car, water tomatoes,

grieve, complain about the heat —

all these accessories of love.

It took me nine years to write this poem about Mr. and Mrs. Loving whose Supreme Court case ended any ban on marriages between persons of different races.  I was and still am afraid of being presumptuous.  But their love and the quiet of their lives was too strong a pull.  It is surprising how dull the prose of the Court's opinion is.  Yet, like so much law, it uses the dry language of justice as a covering for beauty.  And its effect was enormous: it allowed Mr. and Mrs. Loving to live their lives in peace.  I will probably keep on writing this poem.

Lawrence N. DiCostanzo

June 2008 - March 2017

Why the World Must Continue to Exist

                                 Why the World Must Continue to Exist

                                            To those who work on the

                                          Thesaurus Linguae Latinae

                                                     to its users, 

                                                      and to us

                                   A stream unceasing of letters and words
                                   carved on stones and bronze, scratched
                                   on pots and shards, on the inside of rings,
                                   in the black of uncials and the thorns
                                   of medieval script, from the archbishop's
                                   collection of Roman tombstones in Ravenna,
                                   the plaster walls of Pompeii, all carrying
                                   the words of millions who spoke them,
                                   thought them, read them, wrote them,
                                   weeping at the cemetery, picking at
                                   the knots of thought in their studies,
                                   declaiming drama, orating in law suits,
                                   shouting on battlefields, spitting in graffiti,
                                    "Drusilla is a whore and her husband
                                    is a eunuch," making sense of the world,
                                    silent voices, silent pens, silent chisels,
                                    words now copied onto paper slips,
                                    probed to the finest points of meaning,
                                    whirled around, combined, slowly pooling
                                    into the calm waters of a dictionary,
                                    so that the ancients can speak to us,
                                    breathe out in winged words, today,
                                    their part in the revelation of who we are.

                                                                         Lawrence N. DiCostanzo


Note:  I read a New York Times article in the fall of 2019 about the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, a comprehensive dictionary of the Latin language that was begun in the 1890s and continues to be written today.  I thought that this was an example of humankind at its best.  I sat down and, before I knew it, I wrote the above poem.  I wanted to share it and give a tribute to the people connected with the dictionary and also to us as we are members of the human race.  I looked through the dictionary's website and found the "contact us" page.  I sent the poem to the director who responded in just a couple of days with the request for my permission to put it on their homepage with my name.  My wish was granted.  Here is the link to the poem there -
thttps://www.thesaurus.badw.de/en/news.html
Hail to the human race!  When we are good, we are very good.