In the Museum at Teheran

By James Laughlin 1914–1997 James Laughlin

a sentimental curator has placed

two fragments of bronze Grecian

heads together boy

and girl so that the faces black-

ened by the three thousand years of

desert sand & sun

seem to be whispering something

that the Gurgan lion & the wing-

ed dog of Azerbaijan

must not hear but I have heard

them as I hear you now half way

around the world

so simply & so quietly more like

a child than like a woman making

love say to me in

that soft lost near and distant voice

I’m happy now I’m happy oh don’t

move don’t go away.

Source: Poems New and Selected (1998)

Biography

While a sophomore on leave of absence from Harvard University, James Laughlin met Ezra Pound in Rapallo, Italy, and was invited to attend the "Ezuversity"—Pound's term for the private tutoring he gave Laughlin over meals, on hikes, or whenever the master paused in his labors. "I stayed several months in Rapallo at the 'Ezuversity,' learning and reading," recalls Laughlin in an interview with Linda Kuehl for the New York Times . . .

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