Thanks Jim!

Killer ending or no, I'm glad the sonofabitch poet didn't croak right then and there!

I second Ruth's comment!

Wow, Jim. I love that poem. What a killer ending.

Then there is Galway Kinnell's "For Robert Frost" which includes this:

I saw you once on the TV,
Unsteady at the lectern,
The flimsy white leaf
Of hair standing straight up
In the wind, among top hats,
Old farmer and son
Of worse winters than this,
Stopped in the first dazzle

Of the District of Columbia,
Suddenly having to pay
For the cheap onionskin,
The worn-out ribbon, the eyes
Wrecked from writing poems
For us -- stopped
Lonely before millions,
The paper jumping in your grip,

And as the Presidents
Also on the platform
Began flashing nervously
Their Presidential smiles
For the harmless old guy,
And poets watching on the TV
Started thinking. Well that's
The end of that tradition,

And the managers of the event
Said, Boys this is it,
This sonofabitch poet
Is gonna croak,
You drew forth
From your great faithful heart
The poem.

The thanks are yours, Ruth, since it was your GoodReads review of Queen of a Rainy Country that drove me to the local bookshop where I found it, bought it, and devoured it all in one afternoon. Pastan reads well right away and even better later on. Wine drinking metaphor swishing around somewhere in my sleepy head this morning.

I like Pasten also, and the poem brings back memories of that cold, snowy day and seeing Kennedy going past in the inaugural parade. And on that day, like yesterday, the nation was indeed "fueled by hope".

Thanks, Philip. I love Pastan's poetry.

I recalled this recent poem of Linda Pastan's while reading our thread on Elizabeth Alexander's poem for the Obama inauguration. Pastan's was published in her book Queen of a Rainy Country, which has lots of good stuff about the experience of writing poetry.

The old poet stumbled / over his own indelible words ...

----
Remembering Frost at Kennedy's Inauguration

Even the flags seemed frozen
to their poles, and the men

stamping their well-shod feet
resembled an army of overcoats.

But we were young and fueled
by hope, our ardor burned away

the cold. We were the president's,
and briefly, the president would be ours.

The old poet stumbled
over his own indelible words,
his breath a wreath around his face:
a kind of prophecy.