And now, as promised, back to Donald Justice.

Remember I told you I bought Night Light at the Goodwill for 99 cents? Well, since then I've been slowly working my way through the book and have come to the unfortunate conclusion that I don't much like it. In the end it was too dry, too spare. Everything was exquisitely careful and well made, but a little sloppiness would have been welcome, a little tripping-over-his-own-feet excitement. One feels that he caved in somewhere, somehow; that maybe he let his aesthetic, not his own inner heat, do the talking.

Ah, well. I'm often disappointed by poetry. It's a wonder I've kept my finger in the stew all this time.

At least there's always Dickinson.

Poem 793

Emily Dickinson

Grief is a Mouse--

And chooses Wainscot in the Breast

For His Shy House--

And baffles quest--

Grief is a Thief--quick startled--

Pricks His Ear--report to hear

Of that Vast Dark--

That swept His Being --back--

Grief is a Juggler--boldest at the Play--

Lest if He flinch--the eye that way

Pounce on His Bruises--One--say--or Three--

Grief is a Gourmand--spare His luxury--

Best Grief is Tongueless--before He'll tell--

Burn Him in the Public Square--

His Ashes--will

Possibly--if they refuse--How then know--

Since a Rack couldn't coax a syllable--now.