The Red Letters
In ancient Rome, feast days were indicated on the calendar by red letters.
To my mind, all poetry and art serves as a reminder that every day we wake together beneath the sun is a red-letter day.
––Steven Ratiner
Red Letter Poem #309
The Greek Corner
the small, cream-and-maroon-painted spot
where I’d see her waiting, that eager smile
so pleased that we’d at last pinned down
a lunch date, despite my puttings-off,
my not answering phones. We’d stammer,
with so much to say, words jamming
like commuters at a turnstile. But once inside
and settled at a table, we’d get to calmer talk,
pick up the memorized menus, ordering always
egg lemon soup, grape leaves, and spinach pie.
The last time we were there—only six weeks ago!—
she sat with the window light behind her,
spooning up her must-have rice pudding,
a silhouette––I couldn’t quite see her face.
Next time, I thought, we’ll choose another table.
––Susan Donnelly
(for Nancy Voynow, 1937 – 2026)
I’ve become a fan of a television program where two master magicians, Penn & Teller, witness tricks being performed by guest contestants––and then the duo is challenged to figure out how each was accomplished. To my mind, the beauty of the stage illusions is not lessened by the gift of even a small insight into the inner workings of the art form (and to be sure, these performances are nothing short of mesmerizing small-scale theatricals). Rather, having first been wholly beguiled by the illusions, it is a delight to contemplate the tremendous skill involved in their creation. To my mind, Susan Donnelly is just such a magician, working with voices and images instead of playing cards and hidden doves. I think she’s studied in the illusion-academy where great instructors––like Johannes Vermeer and Anton Chekhov, Elizabeth Bishop and Joni Mitchell––demonstrated that behind seemingly straightforward depictions, great emotional depths can be implicated, awaiting our heightened attention. Susan’s poems usually present us with a naturalistic setting and circumstance, delivered by a conversational, if sometimes slightly bewildered, narrator. On a first reading, it feels as if we’ve been taken into the speaker’s confidence as she shares a fairly straightforward account of her day––in this case, thoughts about a tradition of lunch-dates with an old and dear friend. Magicians call this ‘misdirection’ because, as we pay attention to the matter-of-fact center stage, the poet has quietly picked the heart’s pocket, often revealing the treasure we’d forgotten was hidden there.
I’d love to share just a few thoughts about how this simple lyric proves to be anything but. Right from the outset: “It has been and will now forever be”––what a strange and (as we’ll come to see) oracular pronouncement about something as ordinary as lunches with a friend at a local Greek restaurant. Sophocles might have had his chorus utter such a phrase. That “cream-and-maroon-painted spot/ where I’d see her waiting” – and, on a second or third reading, I began to notice the riptide of grammatical tenses employed in this poem, the present perfect colliding with the past, the future contending with the conditional. The poem raises a simple question: what is it about human nature that has us deflect and delay even those experiences we desire most? But once the friends are together at last, “We’d stammer,/ with so much to say, words jamming/ like commuters at a turnstile”––and don’t those alliterative M’s create quite a companionable murmur of delight? Their long friendship sets the table for a feast of conversation and convivial emotion. Perhaps I’m hearing a different Greek whispering off-stage: "Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy,” wrote Epicurus, “much the greatest is the possession of friendship"––and our poet here is savoring the taste of such happiness. “The last time we were there—only six weeks ago!—” and now those em dashes puncture the bubble of this momentary joy, because we sense that a mere “six weeks” was the buffer separating Susan’s friend from eternity. Loss insinuates itself in the speaker’s mind, but is never made explicit or clear. It overwhelms––and we, too, are carried away by it. In the poet’s memory of what now, she realizes, was their last time together, the friend “sat with the window light behind her,/ spooning up her must-have rice pudding,/ a silhouette––I couldn’t quite see her face.” And of course, to we mortals, all angelic presence should be haloed, lost in the light.
The Red Letters
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* To learn more about the origins of the Red Letter Project, check out an essay I wrote for Arrowsmith Magazine:
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