As if England and Nature were the same,
At Williamsburg we imitate by culling
Tricorn and lace—it’s Restoration Game!
And out we strut, colonialling,
Having to mincestep Revolution (strayed,
Were Fancy free astride on Reason; “fought
For English rights”—we cast this role they played,
Who took Liberty as Gentlemen ought).
Jamestown sets no stage. Our first permanence
Sinks in radical ivy, that green hoar felling
Brick towers which nature, but for immanence,
Would sheathe. Then elegant Lee came rebel yelling,
Gouged forts (ah, gaps in Nature), proved
His sword; and we are from England twice removed.
W. Perry Epes is the author of Nothing Happened, a collection of poems published by Word Works in Washington, DC in 2010. He recently retired from many years of teaching and now lives with his wife, Gail, in a restored old stone Quaker farmhouse in Loudoun County, Virginia. He continues to write poetry that tries to cope imaginatively with some of the jarring past ironies and potential future reconciliations of Southern history.
His current contribution to Bourgeon is an older poem written at a time when Confederate imagery seemed an inescapable burden, no matter how widely or far back in time a poet might probe. As an earlier recognition that the Lost Cause was not glorious but indelibly harmful to Southern civilization, the poem may gain some enhanced relevance in our day, when events have provided a clear imperative to remove Confederate monuments from any location even remotely suggesting that they have current governmental legitimacy. Future poems will reflect on the process of removal, on finding where proper contexts could further expose past injustices and point the way toward more inclusive hopes.
Image: By Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division – http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/00652518/
Sally Toner is a High School English teacher who has lived in the Washington, D.C. area for over 20 years. Her poetry, fiction, and non-fiction have appeared in Gargoyle Magazine, The Delmarva Review, Watershed Review, and other publications. She lives in Reston, Virginia with her husband and two daughters, where the recent demise of the household’s fire bellied toad has officially raised her status to fourth funniest in the family.
Emily Goff is a freshman at York College of Pennsylvania, studying English and Creative Writing and aspiring to one day write poetry for a living as well as teach poetry to the disabled. Throughout high school, she was heavily involved in her school’s writing center, particularly by tutoring peers and leading creative writing club meetings, and also received four Silver Keys from Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. In addition, she is part of both the Northern Virginia Poetry Group and the City of York’s literary community. When not writing, Emily enjoys going antiquing, playing viola, and volunteering. This appearance in Bourgeon is her first time being published.
Serena M. Agusto-Cox, a Suffolk University graduate, writes more vigorously than she did in her college poetry seminars. Her day job continues to feed the starving artist, and her poems can be read in Beginnings Magazine, LYNX, Muse Apprentice Guild, The Harrow, Poems Niederngasse, Avocet, Pedestal Magazine, and Mothers Always Write, among others. An essay also appears in H.L. Hix’s Made Priceless and at Modern Creative Life, as does a Q&A on book marketing through blogs in Midge Raymond’s Everyday Book Marketing. She also runs the book review blog,