WEBVTT

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Someone asked if
poetry can console.

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This is a kind of attempt
at consolation which fails.

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But the attempt I guess is--

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the reason for the failure is
obvious and important to think

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about, at least.

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It's called "Visiting a
Friend Near Sagamon Hill."

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If I take this drive to Sagamon
Hill as leisurely as I can,

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I may remember, by the time
I spot my friend's house,

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my speech of consolation,
which so far seems

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to have hidden itself among the
speeches, powerless to console.

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The ones that silence
would be an improvement on.

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The drive over is
beautiful, the road

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winding through woods with
a good smell, the sunlight

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filtered and shimmering.

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No reason for me
to say I'm not one

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of the lucky ones, kin to these
towering birch and sycamore--

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lucky like them to have
grown on well-drained soil,

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in unstinted sun, smiled on, as
Homer might say, by Hyperion.

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Not like the stunted,
scrubby ones rooting below in

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marshland.

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Those marsh trees are
like my sick friend

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whose life hasn't been sent
to test him, but to sap him,

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to wear him down.

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One life, and he knows
that his one hope now

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is to be two people--

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the sufferer and the one
who observes his suffering

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from above, as calmly as
Zeus observes from grassy Ida

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the armies about Troy, at ease
in the best seat in the house.

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That's it down there,
the little dark spot

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balancing the highlights
on the other side.

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The scene lingers a
moment and then fades.

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Zeus drifts back to the clouds.

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My friend discovers
himself in bed listening

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as a car crunches
in the gravel drive,

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hoping that the visitor's
cheer won't make him gloomy--

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that he still wishes
the living well.

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