
29 Jan 2025
K Roberts

New
Moon
Feb 12th
Jan 13th
The Gilded Age
After poet Sara Teasdale’s style,
and the novels of Edith Wharton
A samovar of coffee or of tea
a napkin folded just so on her lap
the arbour afternoon’s a freckled green
the caged canary, languid tabby cat
await her lifted hand, soft-spoken word
and pouring of rich order, recompense
for hours whiled away unseen, unheard
in the reliquary of her innocence.
An entourage attends her in Manhattan
and follows her upstate to summer homes
their vests and gloves are lined in daffodil satin
their ivory buttons match her ivory combs
they know her cosseted life is happenstance
and the price of their proximity is feigned indifference.
Behind the poem...
Sara Teasdale’s poetry has an effortless, weightless quality that contrasts with the seriousness of her subject matter. Her poems are imbued with a sense of breath – they seem designed to be read aloud. Despite Sara’s comfortable childhood and formidable talent, her adult life was unhappy. She experienced painful divorce and physical disability. Choosing not to write about her circumstances, I took instead the broader topic of the era into which she was born. My poem’s subjects are the unseen members of wealthy households; servants for whom success is resilience, self-denial, rather than self-expression.