what a wonderful coincidence to discover that when I look up
one of my two favorite words
threshold
it is linked to my other favorite word
phenomenon
but my life is laced with coincidence
my third favorite word
they happen daily
like itches
for instance,
today I did a wikipedia search for Ezra Pound
because my poetry student daughter fell in love with one of his pieces
I find that from 1945 to 1958
Mr Pound was incarcerated at St Elizabeth's Psychiatric Hospital in Washington D.C. after being found incompetent to stand trial
for treason against the United States
my father worked at St Elizabeth's hospital for 30 years
including the 12 that Mr. Pound was a patient
my father, who kept his poetry hidden in a little black book
I have a vision of him
young at the time
enamored with the 60 plus year-old poet
seeking him out and finding him
resting outside at one of the tables
enjoying the simplicity and intricacies of nature
and perhaps they have a chat about poetry...
my father having a chat with Ezra Pound
70 years before his granddaughter falls in love
with one of his poems
a poem already written and filed away somewhere in the memory of a once beloved poet
threshold: the magnitude or intensity that must be exceeded for a certain reaction, phenomenon, result or condition to occur or be manifested.
“nothing happens until the signal passes the threshold”
Many thanks to Jamadhi verse, who's poem 'Threshold' ispired this piece and to my daughter Jenna who discovered Ezra Pound