READ THAT POEM AGAIN, ANNA(Charles E.J. Moulton) “Read that poem again, Anna,” Carl said.
Anna smiled, happily, that familiar joy blossoming in her heart again. Her brother seemed to like her poems. That seemed to go well with the smell of his Sunday roast beef.
Anna nodded, picking up her poetry book again and reading her work with a giggle.

AUTUMN LEAVES

Yellow, green, red and pink,
Brown, purple and white,
There is a song in the colour
That is played on a seasonal night.

It is a symphony of colours,
It is a concerto of dreams,
It is a minuet of nostalgia,
Played on a lute of streams.

We reflect the fall of a leaf
As part of nature’s own course,
Like an aged mentor whose depth
Is filled with love sans remorse.

Spring is fertile and frilly,
Winter is slow and cold,
Summer is hot and silly,
Autumn is wise and old.

Like expert, aged chieftains
Autumn leaves give us strength,
We find that fall lets us feel that
Which gives us our lives its’ length.

Carl took another sip of his after-dinner coffee, looking at his sister again with that look she knew all too well.
“What?” she asked, giggling.
Carl smiled again, shaking his head. “It just seems to me that you are a woman of so many talents. You play the piano in my silent movie cinema, you are the first woman to have the driver’s license here in our town of Kalmar, you organized the distribution of nourishment to the poor people in Europe now after the end of the war. What is it you can’t do?”
Anna shrugged, now a bit shy from all this attention.
“Carl,” she shrugged. “I just do my thing. I don’t think about the kind of effects it has on people.”
“Exactly,” Carl said. “You should read your poems at my restaurant, yes? Will you?”
Anna thought about that. Why not? She looked at her eleven years older brother, nodded and smiled. “Yes. Fine.”
Anna Julia Sofia Nilsson looked up at the ticking clock on her brother’s kitchen wall.
A quarter to two.
“I have to leave,” she chirped, standing up. “Thank you for a lovely dinner, as always.”
The woman stood up and walked around the table, kissing her brother on the cheek.
He stood up, as well. “Just one more poem for the road, okay? After all, it is 1923. I want to hear what my future female restaurant lyricist will read for her modern audience.”
Anna eyed heavenward. “Carl, you are always so haughty. Why can’t you be more like our other brothers?”
“They are not as rich as I,” Carl answered.
Anna thought about that. “That is true.”
“And they didn’t improvise a theme on one of Liszt’s Rhapsodies to the Rudolph Valentino film in my cinema yesterday.”
Anna laughed. “Yes, but the violinist caught his bow in my hairdo.”
Carl Albien, Anna Nilsson’s rich brother and Kalmar’s citizen number one, smiled.
“Now, read another one of your poems, honey.”
Anna leafed through her work and finally settled on one of them.
A good one.
Her favorite.
Me + You

We don’t remember shame,
We don’t remember the tragic,
We don’t remember desperation,
All we remember is magic.

We remember the twinkling of an eye,
We remember a kind, heartfelt sigh,
We remember the by and by,
We remember how we laughed until we cried.

Laugh with me by the moonlight,
Sing with me until we burst,
Run on the endless ocean
And guess who will come in first.

Can you picture the meadow?
Can you picture the frame?
Can you picture the portrait
Of a woman whose heart I can claim?

“Anna,” Carl said. “What about telling the people in the restaurant Byttan over in the park about your life?”
Anna raised her eyebrows. “I am 23 years old, Carl. I haven’t experienced that much.”
Carl walked up to his sister. This sturdy young entrepeneur, handsome and erect, a perfect example of the soaring modern 1920’s.
“You are too modest,” he said. “Go ahead and read another. Then, take off and be on your way.”
Anna shrugged.
“I will even pay you, Anna,” Carl said. “You are a part of the new age. An emancipated woman with a driver’s license. A country girl that moved to the city. A woman that a phrenologist examined and said ... uhm, what did he say?”
“Oh, I forgot!”
Carl shook his head again, taking a sip of his coffee. “No, tell me!”
“I have very good musical veins,” Anna said.
“Read another one of your poems,” Carl said.
Now, Anna was beginning to feel like an actress.
Her friend Jean Lindeborg always said that she had a nice speaking voice. What was that nice man’s name again. The young man with the bald head and the glowing eyes? Knut Kronzell? Yes. That was his name. She couldn’t help smiling when he saw him. He had a way with people, he had. A good singing voice, too. He liked her poems, as well.
Now, Anna walked about the kitchen, reading her next poem.

SUNG

Sung by a choir in F sharp minor
The song echoes through the vaults.
The tones they soar as the song will outshine her:
The sun herself is not radiant enough.

Sung by a tenor in D flat major
The aria floats through the air.
The melody dances with Neapolitan glee
As the Sicilian winks round the fair.

Sung by a soprano with a diamond smile
The atonal excellence endures.
She concentrates on tones octaves apart
And produces neurosis that cures.

Sung by a bird in man’s own Eden
The nightingale sings her own song.
And so we know that man only produces
What nature has done all along.

Sung by the winds and the trees on the ground
The water vocalizes joy.
The river makes love to the grass and the stones
And send to the young baby boy.

Anna started turning the pages, enjoying the fact that she could now show off being an educated woman, if only to her brother. Maybe even with the prospect of reading these poems to a crowd of people at her brother’s restaurant Byttan over in the City Park.
Maybe she could be the poetry star of Kalmar 1923.

Laughter

Laughter meets the blue eye.
There is awe there.
A surprise in having found someone very special.
The girl is holding present.
Her left hand is clutching the gift.
That miraculously remains in her grasp like a flower in water.
The girl laughs.
Her open mouth utters a sound that affects us.
Laughter meets the blue eye.
We don’t know her.
We just realize that we might want to.



Anna Nilsson embraced her brother, rushed down the stairs and out onto the street. Most of what was there on the streets were horses and wagons. A few couples strode back and forth on the sidewalk, some with large hats, some with protection in form of parsols.
Anna Nilsson walked up to her modern 1923 German Fafner car, opened the car door and went inside, turned the gears outside the car and honked once in the horn that lay outside by the rear view mirror. As she drove off, this first woman with a driver’s license in Kalmar, her love-interest and a promising young sea captain Knut Kronzell jumped up on the footrest and sang: “I knew why they told me to be careful when you drive around the city. 40 kilometres an hour is just to speedy for Kalmar.”
Anna shrieked, but that shriek turned into a laugh once she saw who was joking with her. “Knut, you scared me.”
He laughed, jumping off the footrest as she reparked the car.
She jumped out and took his hand, but he lift her off the ground and kissed her on the cheek. She shrieked again, now out of love.
“Anna?”
“Yes?”
“You want to go have a piece of cake and some coffee at Holmgren’s café?”
Anna smiled with her whole spirit.
“Yes, then I can read you some of my poems.”
Knut nodded. “Yes.”
Anna stopped Knut before he jumped into her car again.
“You know, when I have children I want them to be artists and singers. It is simply the most wonderful thing.”
“I agree,” Knut said. “Am I a candidate?”
“The only one, Knut,” Anna said.
In their hearts, Anna and Knut knew that they would marry just a few years later, move into a flat on Nygatan 16 and have two children.
One named Bengt-Åke, born 1926, and one named Gun Margareta, born 1930.
And yes, they would both be musicians and artists.
Right now, though, Anna and Knut went to have some coffee and cake and they would read Anna’s poems and smile.

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