BOTH OF THEM WERE SIXTY-FIVE

ordinarily I wouldn't be introducing Aaron Copland to

Ida Stern

nor be there to watch him bow ever so slightly

and appreciate her beauty-in spite of things-and see

him take in her white powder and her heavy rouge,

nor see her in her girlish role, a little bit

haughty, maybe a little flirtatious, her wisdom

something else from what I knew, a kind of

pact between them-in spite of things-and during

the second part I wouldn't have half leaned back

in those rocking theatre chairs and smiled my smile

as I did then at my newly discovered mother

nor listen, as it were, almost for the first time

to his pure sounds, and watch her listen, and smile

her victory smile-in spite of things-nor see them

pass beside each other and see him bow

again, so skinny beside her, he who wore

white knickers in 1925 and grey

ribbed socks. If he were in Pittsburgh in 1920

they could have danced together after the basketball

and eaten later at Dan Givanni's and talked

for an hour or two on Vine Street, Beryl listening

with one eye open, a blue, and made some plan-

in spite of things-for another Friday or Saturday,

and he would have smiled at her music, though most

respectfully,

especially the Caruso, and even listened

to the voice and the window rattling, one of my fathers

certainly, though Ida is dead, and Copland

never taught me stickball and never painted

quarter notes and eighth notes inside my crib

and never walked with her down Fifth Avenue

and through the arcade on Liberty and never

rented a room at the Roosevelt as I did

in 1948, and carry bricks

inside a suitcase for the room clerk's sake. I

was thirty-nine when they met and I was starting

to spread my gloom; she was with her powder

and her perfume hanging on to the nearer side,

as I am now. There would be a Greek ship captain,

a financier, a Turkish Jew, and a loving

hillbilly she met at the Moose, but none

would be like him, in spite of things, nor would there

be a spring like that one was, a bursting

you can't imagine, a marriage canopy shaking,

a fiddle to match, a fire-and candles- burning.