A few years ago, I learned that the mother of a friend of ours had been at college with RBG - one of the five Jewish girls housed in the same hall at Cornell - and they remained lifelong friends. Our buddy had the opportunity to go to the Supreme Court now and again, sit in RBG's box and go into her chambers so these two dear friends could visit.
On one of these visits, our friend hand-delivered to RBG a thank you letter and two pictures from our wedding. One of the two of us beaming and another surrounded by the dozens of family and friends who shared our joy. In our letter to her, I wrote that we were so grateful not just for the opportunity to celebrate and recognize our love, but also for the rights we had long been denied. A mix of emotion and pragmatism that maybe made her smile.
So in gratitude and celebration of how one person can make a difference in the world -- may her name be a revolution. Stay safe. Stay well. Onward.
wedding poem
an altar waits us to receive
blessings or a prayer tonight we
choose faith in each other
divinity as we make it how
Eden was bounty all along then
found i am not one to tend
gardens tend instead to cultivate
half-stories eve without the apple
inventions and veracity
juxtaposed but you
know how to read each
line the poem we made
manhattan in January
no tourists in st. patrick’s faith
once removed
piety as we know it belief without
question overlook the looks of the
righteous instead we
save ourselves we are each other’s rescue
toss me a line we will be poems
universes turn spin
veer off the highway slow drive
where trees are the canopy of our
x-ing where ahead
years wait overhead the stars
zenith bless us
© Beth Feldman Brandt
February 2018