Upon First Reading “Tintern Abbey”

  I first read “Tintern Abbey'' at Tintern Abbey on April 21, 2012.  I was sitting in the back seat of David’s VW Passat with a cd playing American country music.  David is my sister’s sixty-four year old British husband, an awfully nice man she met on the Internet.  While they strolled around the site in the light, cold rain, I stayed in the car and read the poem, half listening to  “Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette” by Tex Williams and then  “Ragtime Cowboy Joe'' by the Hill Billies.

   Reading the poem while I looked at the ruins through a rain-spotted window was about being able to say that I was reading “Tintern Abbey” while looking at Tintern Abbey.   Just as I would be able to tell them back home a week later that I bought cheddar at Cheddar.   Even I want to say, “So what?”

      Since meeting my sister two years ago, David, a retired banker, has had a crush on all things western.  He loves driving ninety miles an hour on the wide open spaces between Reno and Elko, Nevada, our home town. When they are back in England,  he listens to his collection of classic country music  as he drives within the speed limit to Bristol, where he and my sister attend bikram yoga three days a week.

   So what about the juxtaposition of a literary classic while listening to classic western swing?  Could I make the case that Buffalo Bill and Bill Wordsworth are saddle pals at heart?  Nostalgia and swagger.  Probably not.  Sometimes the juxtapositions in life are just interesting.