At last we know who
you were, beyond the baby
your mother woke and wrote to,
the baby crying while her body
lay, still warm, in the kitchen one
floor below; beyond the youth
sequestered among the moors,
silently fishing alongside his
famous father.  We now know
your “varied pursuits”: stream ecology,
pottery, woodworking, boating,
bicycling, gardening, and cooking
“the perfect pecan pie.”  How like
both of them you were!  We now
know you would have nothing to
do with her, whose absence left
you hollow, and yet you found refuge
in the Golden Heart of Alaska, in
her country, an ice fortress blazing
with Aurora’s lights.  We know
that in the nine years since the death
of the Poet Laureate, that man of brick,
your foundation crumbled; know
that two years ago, you gave up
your professorship to concentrate
on ceramics.  Is there no way out of
the mind?  One by one, the passage
doors shut, and locked behind you. 
Still, in your depression you were able
to climb Scafell Pike, the tallest peak
in England.  We can see pictures
of you on the Internet now, Nicholas:
movie-star handsome, your stare refusing
us access, guarded against the acolytes
who would tear the very flesh from
your bones in order to possess her.
And now your death, we know that. 
What is it, finally, but an image, the
feet of a condemned man that fell from
a poem—first one of hers, then one of his.
As if their poems could ever console
you, or explain away the pain.  Death
was—and is—your legacy, we know
that now.  At last, Nicholas, we know.

                                  March 27, 2009