Classic Poem

You can't call it a life. Why
do we live it? Who even
has time to take note of us
going over our inner Niagaras
on a planking of rime — or, worse,
the odd flotsam of free verse?

Which is what we do. We can't help it
if cries are wrung from us, cries
no different in principle
from a crow's — only, because
we are word-proud and not crows, we turn
to the laws of language, the pre-
dilections of style — in part,
to be sure, for cause, but
even more for effect. . . . Things
would be different if we had wings,
even a crow's, let alone
the gyrfalcon's airfoil, if we
could ourselves be ideograms
brushed on bright air — or if
we could shake out over our heads
an arras of cascading stars
like the peacock's. . . . We can't. It's words
that deliver us. . . . Man, woman or child, we play
Pygmalions to ourselves, sculpting
in units of vibrating air, something
we pray passes for human. Here
I have hidden half a fine day
behind blinds, like an Elephant Man,
battering at English for a face.











By permission of the author.