In June Mr. Hecht published a book, The Darkness and the Light, which has been slammed by idiots like Wm. Logan, but which has astonished many of his fans. Hecht has long been among America's best poets, but I think that in this volume he's really gone beyond his previous level and laid claim to Alicia's capital G. Here's:
Sarabande on Attaining the Age of Seventy-seven
...."The harbingers are come. See, see their mark,
....White is their colour, and behold my head."
Long gone the smoke and pepper childhood smell
Of the smouldering immolation of the year,
Leaf-strewn in scattered grandeur where it fell,
Golden and poxed with frost, tarnished and sere.
And I myself have whitened as the weathers
Of heaped-up Januarys as they bequeath
The annual rings and wrongs that wring my withers,
Sober my thoughts and undermine my teeth.
The dramatis personae of our lives
Dwindle and wizen; familiar boyhood shames,
The tribulations one somehow survives,
Rise smokily from propitiatory flames
Of our forgetfulness until we find
It becomes strangely easy to forgive
Even ourselves with this clouding of the mind,
This cinerous blur and smudge in which we live.
A turn, a glide, a quarter-turn and bow,
The stately dance advances; these are airs
Bone-deep and numbing I should know by now,
Diminishing the cast, like musical chairs.
If you folks like this as much as I, I'd be happy to type in a few more favorites from this remarkable new book.
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