I am surprised and pleased to learn that 3rd Wednesday Magazine has shared my black and white photograph, “Enigma Café,” on their blog this week.
To celebrate, I am sharing a color photo of a different café, one here in Northfield. Later today, I shall be mulling over the poems I have written, trying to decide if any of them are worthy of being submitted to the magazine’s annual contest (deadline: February 15, 2021.)
This image reassures me, as I contemplate the week ahead replete with sub-zero temperatures, that before too long the air will grow balmy again, and we will be able to shed wooly hats, mittens, snow boots, down parkas, and even sweaters (if not yet masks!)
My dear friend and neighbor, Corrine Heiberg, died three years ago this month. Many times every day I think of my friend, Corrine, of her husband, Elvin, and of all the kindness, laughter, and sharing they brought, and still bring, to our lives.
This month, Third Wednesday Magazine, a journal that has enriched my life as a reader, subscriber, and contributor, has published a sonnet I wrote this year for Corrine. Just yesterday, I learned the magazine has honored it by making it poem of the week on their website.
While in the years since Corrine’s death, Elvin and I have often taken a drive to the serene and nearby Oaklawn Cemetery to visit Corrine’s grave, and to visit the family graves of the Heibergs and the Hulbergs (Elvin’s mother’s family), I realized this year that I had never taken flowers to any grave on Memorial Day. With so many moves in my life, I have perhaps never been in the same city as the final resting place of a deceased relative.
This year, with so many gorgeous flowers in our garden, and frustrated because Elvin and I could not take our uses drives or even visit for armchair travel with slide shows in his apartment due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I thought that at least I could take flowers to Corrine on Memorial Day. Elvin supported the idea, and so I made some bouquets (pictured below). Later, I made this sonnet.
Below are some photographs take that day last May. (Frederick Heiberg and Beulah Hulberg were Elvin’s parents. Grace Whittier was his godmother.)
