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The Glorious Cause

The Lost Cause.

What, then, from an Atlantic away

to almost inherit that name?

What to confess a mother

who knew Robert E.

only as a racehorse name

and so passed my way

quite another kind of

cavalier heritage?

What, then, a twenty years later

the visiting one year post at UVa?

Are you, could you be,

connected to the Virginia Lees?

came that southern-genteel

phone voice.

Would you, could you, speak

of England, The Queen, to

The Daughters of The American Confederacy?

No DAR, No Sir,

No Yankee-Doodle

rather The Queen of the South

on the line, Richmond HQ’d,

Old Dominion.

Juleps it was, mint juleps

whole trays of them

for St. Andrew crossed

ladies and the guest.

And from Madame Chairman

(none of your ms or chairlady)

a toast to England

to Majesty

to Albion’s seed

to its undetected

viande chevaline.

So…it began.

My family, I temporized,

has long sought reconciliation

has long wanted to offer the hand of forgiveness.

Was it not my ailing father,

tears welling, who demanded that if one day