The Unities of Drama - Gordon Gilsdorf

The time of the representation and that of the action represented must be exactly coincident... and the scene of the action must be constant.
-Ludovico Castelvetro, Poetica (1576)

If her great-grandfather,
like seed wanting to die
in soil along the landtrails
beyond the waterways of immigration,
had refused his roots to Ohio
and had guessed his last coins
could buy him Wisconsin loam,
she might have come to me
through the stubble fields
of summer's golden barley
in a long-past harvest
swinging her sweating pail,
giving it with a brushing touch
as fresh as the water itself
or her blush in cool calico.
She might have lengthened
the already-long day's work
with a word or a smile, leaving,
as she turned toward sunset,
for my heart, I recall,
was at a crossroads then.
Instead, when she came,
three generations late,
she had two frosted cokes
from a noisy hallway automat
and we negotiated the July heat
in a terrazzo classroom,
cooled in the garb of our vows,
far from the crossroads then.
Her blush rankled like barley stubble,
a flush of care not to touch,
and we wondered under our words
if Castelvetro believed his "unities,"
if somehow we had cheated
his time and place and action
to shape the little drama
that is both the planting
and the harvest of our love.

Spring Thaw - Gordon Gilsdorf

Most things
die reluctantly,
clinging
to the life
they know,

like snow
trying to hold
the land
far beyond
the middle
of March.

How can it know
that April
will not have
violets without warm rains

and that
surrender
is the only way
to inherit
the earth?