another<\/em> premature death. \u00a0Oddly, I first came upon it, and was very moved by it, when it appeared in\u00a0a college admissions test of some kind \u2014 the ACT or the SAT, or something of that sort \u2014 that I was taking in high school. \u00a0It had such an impact on me that, many years later, I went out of my way to see the unmarked place on Bainbridge Island, Washington, where, in 1963, Roethke himself suffered a heart attack and drowned. \u00a0He was just slightly older, at the time of his death, than\u00a0Stephen Webb would be. \u00a0There is so much unfulfilled human potential in this life.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Elegy for Jane<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n(My student, thrown by a horse)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils;<\/span>
\nAnd her quick look, a sidelong pickerel smile;<\/span>
\nAnd how, once startled into talk, the light syllables leaped for her,<\/span>
\nAnd she balanced in the delight of her thought,<\/span><\/p>\nA wren, happy, tail into the wind,<\/span>
\nHer song trembling the twigs and small branches.<\/span>
\nThe shade sang with her;<\/span>
\nThe leaves, their whispers turned to kissing,<\/span>
\nAnd the mould sang in the bleached valleys under the rose.<\/span><\/p>\nOh, when she was sad, she cast herself down into such a pure depth,<\/span>
\nEven a father could not find her:<\/span>
\nScraping her cheek against straw,<\/span>
\nStirring the clearest water.<\/span><\/p>\nMy sparrow, you are not here,<\/span>
\nWaiting like a fern, making a spiney shadow.<\/span>
\nThe sides of wet stones cannot console me,<\/span>
\nNor the moss, wound with the last light.<\/span><\/p>\nIf only I could nudge you from this sleep,<\/span>
\nMy maimed darling, my skittery pigeon.<\/span>
\nOver this damp grave I speak the words of my love:<\/span>
\nI, with no rights in this matter,<\/span>
\nNeither father nor lover.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 With the sudden and untimely passing of Stephen Webb (you can read his obituary here), I find myself thinking back to a poem by Theodore Roethke about another premature death. \u00a0Oddly, I first came upon it, and was very moved by it, when it appeared in\u00a0a college admissions test of some kind \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Joe](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/03\/800px-Bloedel_Reserve_14.jpg\")
<\/a>