Our Lovevolution

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A Poem by Don Distad

for his wife

Our former lives, we’ve often thought,

Have always been a mystery,

But now I believe, as you will perceive,

We’ve been lovers all through history!

I, a monk, and you a nun

Fleeing Rome’s notoriety,

But, despite our avowals, we doffed our cowls,

And that was the end of piety!

Then I was a lord and you my lady,

In a castle on the Loire,

But, due to the rules in which no one fools,

I worshipped you from afar.

You, in turn, my love did spurn

(Even though I was knighted),

Your love was also, by medieval style,

Properly unrequited.

I, Galahad, and you, Elaine,

As we sought the Holy Grail.

But your loving glance, as I plied my lance,

Made thoughts of Crusading pale!

Then, I a poet and you my “Laura,”

As Renaissance verse was flowing,

But you never knew how my passion grew

As you passed me by unknowing.

The Age of Reason was quite a season

For logical thinking – and yet

You and I by reasoning why,

Found in each other the “raison d’etre”!

On the guillotine scene the blade was keen,

And survival was oft by a hair!

But, by hook or by crook, we went “by the book,”

And outlived Marat, Danton and Robespierre!

Centuries flew and devotion grew;

What wonderful people we knew!

Newton, Voltaire and Keats and Shelley;

DaVinci, Moliere and Machiavelli.

So that is how, in the here and now,

We’ve made it by great endeavor.

Our love, we know, has stood the show

And now we’re all set for — forever!

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Don Distad was a historian and history instructor.

The current public library in Lincoln City, Oregon, exists thanks to him, and the reading room there (The Distad Reading Room) is named in his honor.

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