David J. Rothman

Four Sonnets from the Sequence "Keep the Harp" in Orpheus Looks Back

Erect No Monument

Yes—Errichtet keinen Denkstein. What’s more,

However, don’t you see? Stop praising me

At all. Praise what you should. Praise her. Don’t bore

Me with more roses in my memory.

I loved Eurydice, a love I proved

By making her immortal though she died.

If you loved Em, then you’ll sing what she loved

Because she loved it. Sing about yóur bride.

Here, take my harp. It’s tuned. Put into words

The way that she could imitate the whinny

Of a horse, the flash of spring bluebirds

That brought her joy, her MA thesis on

Arts education, love of Chai made skinny.

Sing what only you can sing, now that she’s gone.

“Come avrebbe potuto dire Dante, anche se in italiano, ‘Innamorarsi’”

With you was like that moment few if any

Have ever seen, when a slender root,

Grown fat and purposeful across its many

Summers, muscles up into a brute

Vitality that will not be denied,

And, growing, pushing in the rich darkness,

One little battle against stone that’s tried

To pave our lives into the straight and narrow,

Cracks the concrete some think has contained

The messiness of life, but can’t, because

Time may be slow but cannot be restrained

By any stone that will be, is, or was.

Who can know the change a small seed makes?

Roots grow silently. Then pavement breaks.”

“A Note of Thanks from the Head of Crested Butte Academy, Expressing Gratitude to a Major Donor for the Support of David Chodounsky, NCAA DI Slalom Champion, U.S. Super G Champion, Four-Time U.S. Slalom Champion and Two-Time Olympian”

In memoriam Emily Desire Gaynor Rothman, 1967-2020.

He was the best young slalom skier I

Had ever seen. Just twelve, but when he ran

Gates anyone who had a racer’s eye

Could see that he had talent and a plan.

Out of the scores of students at the school,

Ambitious athletes all, he still stood out.

Quiet, intense, he mastered every rule.

Great kid. Of course the other schools found out.

When he began to win some bigger races

Those schools came calling, gushing cash like fountains.

It was impossible to match such places.

It looked like he’d leave us for other mountains.

“Em,” I said, “this boy deserves this bet…”

OK, she said, and never once expressed regret.

Tsunamis

There are some poets who have captured lovers

Fighting. I don’t mean the humor in

Kat and Petruchio, or Beatrice

And Benedict, but the distress that hovers

Behind what makes no sense at first, our thin-

Voiced reason powerless to keep the peace.

I don’t mean talking in bed. I mean the slow

Burn of some monstrous resentment that lingers

And eats away at everything that’s good.

You know the way that these things tend to go:

Some small remark that seems like nothing triggers

Tsunamis from earthquakes of childhood.

There were moments when she seemed to lose her mind.

Me too. But look, we did come through. Eros is blind.

David J. Rothman’s most recent books are Learning the Secrets of English Verse (Springer 2022), a textbook coauthored with Susan Delaney Spear, and My Brother’s Keeper (Lithic 2019), a Finalist for the Colorado Book Award in poetry. In 2019 he won a Pushcart for the poem “Kernels,” which originally appeared in The New Criterion.