This is very sad news, particularly for those who knew him, of course, but really for everyone. With no offense meant to those who are still alive, I sincerely doubt there's a finer poet living.
Ed
Hamlen Brook
By Richard Wilbur
xxAt the alder-darkened brook
xWhere the stream slows to a lucid jet
I lean to the water, dinting its top with sweat,
xAnd see, before I can drink,
xxA startled inchling trout
xOf spotted near-transparency,
Trawling a shadow solider than he.
xHe swerves now, darting out
xxTo where, in a flicked slew
xOf sparks and glittering silt, he weaves
Through stream-bed rocks, disturbing foundered leaves,
xAnd butts them out of view
xxBeneath a sliding glass
xCrazed by the skimming of a brace
Of burnished dragon-flies across its face,
xIn which the cloudlets pass
xxAnd a white precipice
xOf mirrored birch-trees plunges down
Toward where the azures of the zenith drown.
xHow shall I drink all this?
xxJoy's trick is to supply
xDry lips with what can cool and slake,
Leaving them dumbstruck also with an ache
xNothing can satisfy.
Last edited by Ed Shacklee; 10-15-2017 at 04:27 PM.
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