‘From Heathrow to Houston’ by Susan Jarvis Bryant

Hi courageous, determined, and multi-talented Susan!
Thank you for your poem (ringing with a bit of England — that brings the question of why you went to Texas — Perhaps it was to be with Mike who you’d already met — and perhaps he had a plumber’s magnet to draw your steely being in).

Here’s some more perhapses and projections . . .

Perhaps (I’d say, because I do not know you that well)
you once were marginalia and put away,
were told “some poets do make ’it’ but yours won’t sell”
and so in conversation they became the ‘they’
that bloat big in their boots to trip you on your way.

They’d gloat, “Your stuff could cover up a chocolate box,
a picture of plumped airy-fairy filler-in
because it is so simple and too orthodox,
naive, part-childlike, innocent, . . .” Yet brimming in
straightforwardness, and to the point, and genuine.

And, as you showed sweet subtlety right off the bat,
with fruitful charms of inner rhyme and figs of speech,
they’d pat your head because your meaning seemed off-pat
and then they’d clamber to a rambling hammered speech
about the mores of ‘poesy’ only you could reach.

Perhaps my sketch of unseen setbacks in your life
conveys a sense of inner strength that saw you through
to find your core as poet, soul, supported wife,
to trust your judgement over those who would judge you —
for me (and maybe many more) your tale rings true.

“ It took me over four decades to trust my own judgment above those judging me, “
a quote to savor.

Congrats to you both in big cowboy hats!!!