Classic Poem

What you shed given the circumstances,
the imagined or unimaginable moment,
upper case or Chekhov in the provinces,
each of grief"s five stages separate.

Add " disgrace with fortune and men"s eyes "
and endless " sessions of sweet silent thought, "
since either way the hour is late, the verities
worn out, the right word difficult.

Yet nothing at all will well from a depth
you didn"t know you had. Donald Justice
once singled out the act of Shirley Booth
just picking up the phone (her little voice)

in Come Back, Little Sheba as enough
to break your heart. As Hart Crane"s kitten
in the wilderness, crying through the sounds of
" gaiety and quest, " may seem small when

put against Wordsworth"s daughter Catharine,
" deep buried " at age three, Dove Cottage, 1812.
More than likely, though, the long thought of one
loss is all loss. But keep it to yourself.

Unless, like Tennyson, " divine despair "
gathers " to the eyes " in " tears, idle tears. "
Then better to think with care.
" Donald Justice is dead, " he wrote, years
before his death.