An Ekphrastic Narrative Poem
I just finished reading "John" by Cynthia Lennon. John Lennon's first wife stood by his side during the up and coming years and throughout the tumultuous Beatlemania days. It is an excellent biography. Honest, balanced, and without anger. Cynthia let's the evidence speak for itself.
The following "letter" is in response to the attached photograph.
"Yesterday"[An ekphrastic poem in response to a photograph of Cynthia and Julian Lennon]
It’s hard to believe these people are gone.
Lives I sat beside; voices made tangible through their presence, their words.
John Lennon was a bit of a poet when not tripping.
I look at your picture, Cynthia, and I see the smile is forced, offered in spite of the heartache borne in silence. For the sake of your son.
Any answer is better than no explanation. And yet, John refuses to speak. Ono has become his voice.
Isn’t it remarkable how one person entering the room can change the course of your life, forever.
You were 19 and practicing visual design when John walked in.
Another class, another boy, another girl. But there you both were—so very different.
Is it true—opposites attract? He called you Cyn. How could you know he’d bisect your heart as well as your name? Not even John knew what was in store.
Equilibrium presents itself in the progeny of negative and positive outlets. LSD, womanizing, too much too fast.
Julian was conceived in love. He smiles because “what it all means” takes time for a little boy to understand, even a precocious boy like yourself, dear Julian. In time you will look so much like your “too young to be a father,” father. How could he abandon you to your mother—forsaking goodness—when the hour of bewitching led him into dark blindness?
Isn’t it remarkable how one person leaving the room can change the course of your life, forever.
John is dead now. The source of sorrow behind your eyes stayed with you until you, Cyn, died too. Even the boy beside you is long gone, grown up into a sensitive kind man.
Do you remember this picture, Julian?
How strange how the years slip away and suddenly we have become our mothers, our fathers. What happened to “Yesterday?” Somewhere, far out in the universe within us, we know it all goes back to that moment when Fate walked into the room and found you waiting. Making fortune and pain seem as arbitrary as catching the next train. But in my life I know this is a false refrain. It is no coincidence that the woman to whom I gave my youth in turn gave me your husband’s poems sung to the world.
Imagine all these years later your pain accounting for such creativity. You loved yours. And I love her.
Rest peacefully. You are free.
-Wheston Chancellor Grove
