In a second poem that in many ways
is my favorite of Wright's poem--
although, part of the reason for it
is when I remember when I first read the poem in the New Yorker
about six years ago, it was so surprisingly close to prose,
and yet, so obviously poetry.
That it startled me, as if some sort of a new language
were being spoken.
Some sort of a perfect aesthetic balance between the two
were there.
It's a poem about passing things down, as many of his poems
are, from father to son from mother to son.
The father in this case, his own father,
but he mentions also within the poem his own son,
and the Roman poet, Horace, who the poem is addressed to,
Quintus Horatius Flaccus.
It's entitled Prayer to the Good Poet.
Quintus Horatius Flaccus, my good secret.
Now my father, a good man in Ohio, lies alone in pain.
And I scarcely know where to turn now.
50 years he worked in that bitter factory.
He learned how to love what I found so ugly.
Ugliness, what is it?
A bitter taste of one body.
Now if I ask anything, I would ask you
how to gather my father to your bosom.
He knew, after all, how to love Italians.
Others said Dagos.
One good friend of mine, Benny Capuletti,
told me how in a basketball game one person
called him a dirty Guinea, and Benny did not even slug him.
Quintus Horatius Flaccus, my good secret.
Benny Capuletti had the fastest hands in that fast Ohio Valley.
He could have killed him.
More than love, my father knew how to bear love.
One quick woman, a dark river of labor,
he led me and my two good brothers to gather
and swim there.
I still love the fine beauty of his body.
He could pitch a very good Sunday baseball.
One afternoon, he shifted to left hand
and struck out three men.
Every time I go back home to Ohio, he sits down and tells me
he loves Italians.
How can I tell you why he loves you, Quintus Horatius?
I worked once in the factory that he worked in.
Now I work in that factory that you live in.
Some people think poetry is easy, but you two didn't.
Easy, easy, I ask you, easy, easy.
Early evening by Tiber, by Ohio, give the gift
to each lovely other.
I would be happy.
Now my son is another poet.
Fathers, I can go on living.
I was afraid once four loving fathers meeting together
would be a cold day in hell.
Quintus Horatius Flaccus, my good father,
you were just the beginning.
You quick, and lonely, metrical crystals of February,
it is just snow.