{"id":2491,"date":"1980-04-01T00:01:10","date_gmt":"1980-04-01T08:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/?p=2491"},"modified":"2022-12-24T12:09:31","modified_gmt":"2022-12-24T20:09:31","slug":"1980-spring-poem-for-jay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/1980\/04\/01\/1980-spring-poem-for-jay\/","title":{"rendered":"1980, Spring: Poem for Jay"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Marcy wrote three versions of this poem, on a \u201cWar is not healthy for children and other living things\u201d notecard. The first two versions are labeled \u201cA poem in the Chinese style for an image of Eric.\u201d (Jay tells me that Eric was the son of Marcy\u2019s cousins Harriet and Jack. I have no memory of Eric.)<\/p>\r\n

The third version, below, is labeled \u201ca better version, for Joaquin.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Jay\u2019s copy of the poem is dated \u201cSpring 1980,\u201d so I\u2019m dating this as April, 1980, for purposes of putting the letters in chronological order.<\/p>\r\n

The mention of \u201cfoothills\u201d may refer to Foothills Park, near Palo Alto. (Where we later scattered Marcy\u2019s ashes.)<\/p>\r\n

This doesn\u2019t appear to have been mailed to anyone. I wonder if it was among her things when she died, and if George and Helen therefore ended up with it. I found it mixed in with the rest of these letters.<\/p>\r\n

As far as I know, Marcy didn\u2019t often write poetry; this is the only poem of hers that I know of, aside from a Milton parody<\/a> in a 1971 letter.<\/p>\r\n

My usual approach to this sort of thing would be to include all three versions of the poem, including the crossed-out bits, as a way to digitally preserve the card as accurately as possible. But I think in this particular case, I\u2019m more interested in preserving the final version than in showing how it evolved. So below is what appears to have been the final version, leaving out crossed-out parts.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n
\r\n

My heart longs for the green hills,<\/p>\r\n

For the high green foothills where we flew our kites<\/p>\r\n

Our dragon lords soared the skies, rode the sea-wind<\/p>\r\n

Ruled our hearts, soaring and diving<\/p>\r\n

Was it a year ago?<\/p>\r\n

Today the hills are green again<\/p>\r\n

The wind calls out for a kite to caress<\/p>\r\n

But spring comes to the flatlands, too<\/p>\r\n

Where I remain, sedately viewing the wisteria<\/p>\r\n

While my dragon lord lives folded in his box.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marcy didn\u2019t often write poems. This one, about flying dragon kites, was for my brother. \u201cMy heart longs for the green hills[\u2026]\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-marcy","category-palo-alto"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2491"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2499,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2491\/revisions\/2499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}