My favorites of Wright's poems tend to be poems in which,
from his own vulnerability and loneliness,
he conceived a poem that would in some way
take care of others.
It's a transference of sorts, I think.
One of my favorites of those poems
is a poem in which he talks about going home and visiting
his father.
I love it for its formality, for its vulnerability,
and for its almost paternal attitude toward his own father.
There's a lovely point in the poem where
he says, "I will not wake him."
And he's talking about not waking his father up,
but he's talking about more than that.
He's talking about not revealing to his father
that he is a different person than his father believes
he has become.
It's called "Two postures beside a fire."
Tonight I watch my father's hair as he
sits dreaming near his stove.
Knowing my feather of despair, he
sent me an owl's plume for love, lest I not
know, so I've come home.
Tonight Ohio, where I once hounded and cursed
my loneliness, shows me my father, who
broke stones, wrestled and mastered great machines,
and rests shadowing his lovely face.
Nobly his hands fold together in his repose.
He is proud of me, believing I have done strong things
among men and become a man of place among men of place
in the large cities.
I will not waken him.
I have come home alone without wife or a child to delight him.
Awake, solitary, and welcome, I too
sit near his stove, the lines of an ugly age scarring my face,
and my hands twitch nervously about.