In The Matter Of Proust, Milton, Cervantes, Dante et al

May 19, 2007 | Blank Verse, Poetry |

The petty affairs of everyday lifeNow so confound me from morning to nightI’ve lost touch with the impossible ones,Proust, Milton, Cervantes, Dante et al. I picture their names inscribed on a doorIn gilt on sober seeming frosted glassIn a random bland office corridor,Some place of Business which is nothing more. Walking whether in my sleep or just out,I knock unsuspecting at mid-morning.“An odd coincidence,” I am thinking,“Peculiar names with awkward redolence For a list of lawyers or accountantsOr surveyors, designers, purveyors,Or any other such bustlers about.”A woman of indeterminate years, Not quite cold but just a bit aloof,Favors me with a smile from where she sitsWell-dressed behind her old fashioned desk.“Why have you come? What can we do for you?” We are thirty stories above the streetBut with a view out a single windowOf the traffic down below, what flows there.I look and I see characters in ink. Letters and words and brightly colored birds.Question marks with canes, dapper periodsClimbing into shining stretch limousines.A moment’s vertigo. I look away. Can things be so utterly differentFrom what I thought? What am I doing here?Was I not just now down there on that street?Are my hopes, too, no better than letters? How shall I ever answer this lady’s Unpresuming smile, unassuming style?Why have I come? What can they do for me?“I look lost only because I am lost.” “Ah, yes,” she says, “Perhaps Mr. Dante…”“Or Mr. Milton as far as that goes.As I’m sure you know, he has been much vexedWith his eyes. Or even old Cervantes…” I can’t be sure. I thought her face brightenedWith something like relief, as if...