The Days Prior
Margot loved Joy
And in a shimmer of scent
She enveloped cloud-like over the piano keys.
Maman nearly choked on a fishbone of contention
When she thought of Margot’s choice of loves
First, the one was turned
And later, another pirouetted through a frame of fame
As the sister’s fingers hit the keys
There was an echo, love
Bough breaking in the wind
Now those precursors
To entitlement regal
Knew that, in old Russia
The cranes were flying south.
Part the second said
What of a Royal wardrobe?
Cecil Beaton and Norman Hartnell
Knew just how to continue the rightful creative code
In sumptuous brocade and gold
Highlighting in the developing dish
Of ill-lost capabilities.
But what now with palm capped to chin –
How to rule, where to end and begin?
Years hence like stars on the highway to heaven
Life the rose of ninety years and repose in grace and joy.
Yes, sorrow like arrow shot from a bow
To hit that mark and turn and wave
Now to end, yes to depart.
The Crane Wife -- Gennady Spirin
Margot loved Joy
And in a shimmer of scent
She enveloped cloud-like over the piano keys.
Maman nearly choked on a fishbone of contention
When she thought of Margot’s choice of loves
First, the one was turned
And later, another pirouetted through a frame of fame
As the sister’s fingers hit the keys
There was an echo, love
Bough breaking in the wind
Now those precursors
To entitlement regal
Knew that, in old Russia
The cranes were flying south.
Part the second said
What of a Royal wardrobe?
Cecil Beaton and Norman Hartnell
Knew just how to continue the rightful creative code
In sumptuous brocade and gold
Highlighting in the developing dish
Of ill-lost capabilities.
But what now with palm capped to chin –
How to rule, where to end and begin?
Years hence like stars on the highway to heaven
Life the rose of ninety years and repose in grace and joy.
Yes, sorrow like arrow shot from a bow
To hit that mark and turn and wave
Now to end, yes to depart.
The Crane Wife -- Gennady Spirin
Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton was a fashion/portrait/war photographer, diarist, painter, interior designer and an Oscar–winning stage and costume designer for films and the theater. In New York he designed book jackets and costumes for charity matinees before becoming a staff photographer for "Vanity Fair." In 1938, he inserted tiny (but legible) anti-Semitic phrases in an illustration in "Vogue" about New York society and was fired. But during World War II he recovered his reputation as a photographer for the Ministry of Information and often photographed the British royal family. After the war he returned to the US and designed sets, costumes, and lighting for Broadway plays, winning 4 Tony Award for costume design, and picked up Academy Awards for Best Costume Design for "Gigi" (1958) and "My Fair Lady" (1964; he has won a Tony for the same musical in 1957). He was knighted in 1972. His contemporary clothes designer Sir Norman Bishop Hartnell established London as an innovative fashion center and became the 1st major designer to produce ready-to-wear clothing. He often designed clothing for the royal family, and in 1947 he received the Neiman Marcus Fashion Award for his influence on world fashion. Both men were closely associated with the bohemian aristocrats and socialites known as "the Bright Young Things."
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