The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer and Ernest Hemingway Do Not Box in Heaven
| « | The Mailer Review • Volume 4 Number 1 • 2010 • Literary Warriors | » |
Instead, they sit companionably on white, wooden lawn-chairs,
the kind you find painted in a summer mountain lodge scene,
white lawn-chairs dotting the landscape, the pleasant air
rippling through the mountain fields its shades of green.
Two old masters laughing in enlivened conversation,
their hands gesturing in animated points,
comparing their boisterous lives, their women, their literary station.
Then, what is Heaven but reverie and sharing?
Mailer drawling, "I never met a beautiful woman
who wasn’t angry.” Hemingway gut-laughing to agree.
Two hard-scrabbled souls relaxing to become true men
finally, beyond fighting to live harder, dying to be free.
No, we can’t imagine contentions continuing after death.
Instead, just let the souls of two old masters have
the time to talk for their small eternity. It’s the breath
of words that are good, words that live on, words that save.
