Poem - Beatrice Does My Laundry

Beatrice Does My Laundry

More than other men, grief-torn or merry,

That history has thought worthy of note,

I honor and adore great Alighieri,

And not alone for all the poems he wrote,

But for his tears of ecstasy and grief,

Which Dante wept and distilled into verse.

Of sufferers-from-love he was the chief,

His depth of feeling both blessing and curse.

I used to call on Dante, in the past,

For intercession in some special case.

For years, he made no answer, but at last

He spoke as clear as one speaks face to face:

“Look here, my son, what does this madness mean,

That you, the rich, play supplicant to me?

To watch my love, I had to find a ‘screen’,

But you can watch your love completely free!

For you have wife and muse in self-same soul,

And every poem you write her, you can sign.

Your love can both fulfil the Beatrice role,

And kiss you as the clock is striking nine.”

I took his sense, and troubled him no more:

The wealthy must not beg alms of the poor.

© 2017, Paul Erlandson