Dear Readers,
I hope you’ll forgive this departure from our regularly scheduled programming for two brief notes.
First, my first published poem is online to be read or listened to (that’s me reading in a very sleepy voice that I hope comes across as appropriately serious and poetic). It’s about Catherine of Aragon, whom I’ve always found fascinating and rather tragic, in the way that sixteenth-century son-less Spanish princesses can be.
Next:
Some weeks ago I mentioned that I’m writing an advice column called Dear Clementine; you can read the first column, called “The Other Picard,” here. It involves both babies and Star Trek. And please do send questions to dearclementinepostscript [at] gmail [dot] com.
And that’s the news from here. What are you up to, Dear Readers?
Rosemary and Reading Glasses 
I LOVE reading advice columns. It’s like a drug for me. Can you tell that I’m excited?
Yay! I hope you’ll like this one!
I wasn’t quite sure what the historical context of your poem was (it seemed as if it has one), but it made me cry. Really nice, Caroline! And your reading voice is beautiful. Congratulations!
Thank you so much, Kay! I’m touched!
Catherine of Aragon was the first wife of Henry VIII, as I’m sure you know; she suffered through miscarriages, a stillbirth, and the death of a newborn son (her daughter, Mary, survived and became Queen Mary I from 1553-58). Very devout to begin with, she undertook a pilgrimage to St. Frideswide to pray for a son (which Henry desperately wanted, although he had already tired of Catherine). No son was born to Catherine, of course, though the king’s mistress Elizabeth Blount gave birth to a boy in 1519 (his name was Henry Fitzroy and he died when he was 17 or so).
Of course, I knew all about her and Henry and Mary, and I realized she had conception problems. Nice background, thanks! I wondered what happened to Henry Fitzroy. I knew he existed, but that was about it.
He died of an illness–nothing cloak and dagger.