Anne Emerson- Photographer,Twin, and Author
Annie and twin, about seven years old
Annie and Twin,
five years old
Welcome
to Annie's "Twinnie" World, in Poetry.
"Hey, Twin..."
Annie started writing poems in High School but did not pursue it as a hobby until a friend offered to teach her, later in life. She eventually sought like-minded people, joined workshop groups, and learned from them.
Philosophical, sort of...
CHAMBERS OF THE HEART -
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(First published in The Poet's Domain Vol. 35, November 2021; Revised version published in PSV Centennial Anthology, 2023. The poem was read at Annie's father's memorial service, November 5, 2023. He passed away aged 95, having caught a bus to the hospital for his last illness - independent as ever.)
A coiling many-chambered human heart –
a nautilus – in death it breaks apart;
its form deforming under stilling sand,
unless recaptured by a human hand.
By pearl and silk, or dirt and rags rebuilt,
a shell grants someone brilliance or guilt.
So, was he soaring to creative life;
or shellfish, butchered by convention’s knife?
That person whom we loved – a man or saint?
The one derided – villain? Oddly quaint?
What author walks the beach to pick it up –
our spiral shell – and see its heart lit up?
Its owner breathed and moved in sandy bed;
we might have known him there; not raised him, dead.
Let’s make him once-more living – give him style –
avoiding hasty judgment without trial.
How lies the light upon the sand today?
Who walks with us, about the salted bay?
Alas, a different shell entices on,
while waves envelop this; its moment gone.
​
Anne Emerson
RELATIVITY -
​
(First published in The Poet's Domain Vol. 35, November 2021)
Whatever! Does it matter
how someone sees the world?
Is there objective truth
out there, in here, or curled?
Are there opinions only
that must be reconciled?
Or might we find a place
where truth is domiciled?
A dreamer, sometime student,
thinks Einstein was mistaken –
ignoring human will
and what it might awaken.
I tell this man he’s wrong –
it’s not the human role
that Einstein’s math ignored –
it’s every living soul.
Together, we agree,
the Universe is growing.
It’s fashioned by the mind
and we say where it’s going.
Anne Emerson
​
Twins make cute bridesmaids
Being Annie, and Twin...
We were popular as bridesmaids. Even, once, for someone who did not know us very well.
How do I Twin Thee?
How do I twin thee? Let me tell our ways.
We shared our features, thoughts, our heft and height –
joint-impact keeping each girl out of sight
without the other’s echo-haunting face.
​
We two, observed as one, learned every day’s
most pressing need, in dawn or dark of night –
to share space freely and respect her right
to be herself in our “together” place.
​
Apart, now grown, our childhood lesson’s noose
has made me echo you with twin-like faith –
which, little recognized, you’ll hate to lose;
for absent twin’s still present in the breath,
​
smiles, tears of both our lives; please - if you choose -
bring back two trusting souls from living death.
Anne Emerson, Williamsburg, August 2023
​
Garden Party,
or Jocks and Nerds
For bronzed and toned athletic stars,
it’s sandwich-time, with drinks – upon
a stripe-rolled lawn – to share with nerds.
Oh, what a party! What a show!
Well-orchestrated, smooth and charmed;
the jocks belong, for sure, but nerds?
Whatever are they doing here,
without the muscles and the brawn,
among Olympic crème de crème?
The stars have nerves like tempered steel –
and quick, to turn upon a dime;
they’re honed and trained, as “win” machines.
The nerds seem nutty, almost stupid,
watching things that others don’t –
they live in half-another world.
What does this oddball guest-list share?
The Queen of England asked them in –
Olympian golds, all types – to tea.
So here, upon a storied lawn,
do Bridge, and Chess and Tiddlywinks
chitchat with Swim and Track and Crew.
It’s not observed in outward frame -
so who might catch a champion’s heart
that beats in muscles of the brain?
Anne Emerson, March 2022
My twin said she wasn't given a gold medal for being on the Bridge team that won the Venice Cup (Women's World Championship) in 1985.
So, I have posted her silver medal instead, for being on the team that lost in the final, in the Bridge Olympiad in 1984.
