Poems to Natasha

<p><strong>C.J. Reid met Natasha in a language class at the tail end of winter in January 1971.</strong></p> <p>It was a time when sociability floated freely in the air. Friendships were easy to form transitory though they might ultimately become. It was a time of great individual promise even if it was difficult to plan for the days to come or to foresee what fate and the future might hold for their generation in the wake of the Cold War. It was a time for adventure yet it was the most circumspect of times.<p><p>They were taking a class comprised of a group of perhaps twenty students from all over the world including students from Latin America the Middle East Southern Europe and-Lo!- the Soviet Union which is where Natasha was from. Gradually over the weeks they came to know each other.<p><p>One early May morning Natasha announced that she would be leaving the class at the end of the week. She had to return to Moscow. Apparently Natasha was in the process of emigrating and she and her family's presence was required to obtain the appropriate exit visas.<p><p>The democratic West and the Soviet Union were in the middle of the Cold War. The Vietnam War was at its height. There was an ongoing crisis in Berlin. So naturally Reid didn't know if I'd ever see Natasha again. He actually thought he wouldn't.<p> <p>The two met again fifteen years later in 1987. They were shopping on a late July night at the same local store one Friday evening. Reid didn't know it then but Natasha lived in an apartment complex about two hundred yards from his. She had moved back to town. For Reid seeing Natasha there was the surprise of a lifetime. They rekindled their relationship and were together 780 days. They parted in September 1989.<p><p>C.J. Reid wrote these poems during October and November 1989. Most of them are in their original state; perhaps half were edited by changing a word here or there in preparation for publication. The poems in this collection reflect Reid's own subjective effort to deal at the time with their time together and the final breakup of their relationship.<p>