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Charlottesville Juleps

Mr. Jefferson’s Virginia

Monticello and University

Serpentine Walls

Pavilion grandeur

Palladio in the Blue Ridge.

The genius of the Declaration

and, well,

Sally Hemings.

Ah those First Families of Virginia

those Lees of Virginia

Frances Lightfoot Lee

Lighthorse Harry Lee

and always Robert E. Lee

The Confederacy’s own

The Glorious Cause

The Lost Cause.

What, then, from an Atlantic away

to almost inherit that name?

What to confess a mother

who knew Robert E.

only as a racehorse name

and so passed my way

quite another kind of

cavalier heritage?

What, then, a twenty years later

the visiting one year post at UVa?

Are you, could you be,

connected to the Virginia Lees?

came that southern-genteel

phone voice.

Would you, could you, speak

of England, The Queen, to

The Daughters of The American Confederacy?

No DAR, No Sir,

No Yankee-Doodle

rather The Queen of the South

on the line, Richmond HQ’d,

Old Dominion.

Juleps it was, mint juleps

whole trays of them

for St. Andrew crossed

ladies and the guest.

And from Madame Chairman

(none of your ms or chairlady)

a toast to England

to Majesty

to Albion’s seed

to its undetected

viande chevaline.

So…it began.

My family, I temporized,

has long sought reconciliation

has long wanted to offer the hand of forgiveness.

Was it not my ailing father,

tears welling, who demanded that if one day

his son should tread Virginia soil

then let amends be made?

For ours were indeed the Lees

who bequeathed the General I lied.

For ours indeed were the Lees

who slave-farmed tobacco and crop.

For ours were indeed the Lees

who opted for rum and empire in the Indies.

For ours were the Lees

who oversaw cane and sugar,

and ours were, indeed, the Lees, came my pause,

who droit de seigneur

knotted, spliced,

with Africa’s Barbados and Jamaica women.

The result, mes chères mesdames,

was, is, er,

a crossblood of Lees

and right here

since Raleigh’s landing,

Smith’s sailing,

not to mention

those obstreperous Powhatan Indians

(and daughter princess, Mrs. Rolfe)

in virgin Virginia.

The silence

shouted

even guffawed.

Mercy, said Madame Chairman

Mercy, said the lady members.

And the black waiter

hand on bow tie

smile hardly concealed

whispered

Man, you’re in some kind of shit.

I was.

I hope.