Talking it Over

Talking it Over 80 x 80 cm - mixed media on canvas

MY GRANDMOTHER’S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

On Thursday afternoons

she met for a few hours with the mayor 

of our small town, which was just starting to sprawl out

in unpredictable ways. Maybe they talked

about zoning issues? Sundays, after football,

a black and white William F. Buckley, Jr.

performed in my grandparents’ living room: slumped in his chair,

clipboard on lap, stuttering polysyllabic obscurities

from behind a sleepy aristo mask

basking in the warm light of utter certainty. Not unlike a reptile

that sticks the tip of its tongue out before striking.  

“He’s too English,” my grandfather complained

a little later, referring to WFB, Jr., while plastering

self-made barbecue sauce onto a pair of rotating game hens.

“He’s too conservative,” corrected his wife. “He wants everything to go

…backwards. He’s such a Tory he would have been

against the American Revolution. His first loyalty

is to his class, not our country.” Life wasn’t better

back then, it was just life, but a lot more quiet. For example, what my

grandmother talked about on Thursday afternoons at the Concord Airport

   Holiday Inn has not come down to us.