Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO E. S. C., by JOHN BROOKS WHEELWRIGHT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO E. S. C., by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Perhaps some one of you has lost a friend
Last Line: A voice that walks among the apple trees.
Subject(s): Friendship; Sympathy; Empathy


PERHAPS some one of you has lost a friend
who had a gift of saying wondrous things
you can't remember, and yet you can't forget,
sayings which make you almost weep for more,
now that you know that more can never come —

a friend not made to go to God, but just to
live until the flesh dropped from him and he saw
he had been near detested angels all the while ...

Out there in Leavenworth that bored you,
upon the eve of your return,
(Proud of your shoulder-straps, back among friends,
then on to France) — "An over-dose of morphine?"
It is absurd. A doctor couldn't kill one
who never cared a bit for heaven, who built
philosophy upon a scorn of standards,
whose warm blood flowing underneath cool skin,
clear as an autumn evening, flooded all
his tender frailty with fury. Streams
of sympathy pour over distant heights,
dispassionately intimate in death.

Now and again, when tipsy friends plumb deeps
of conversation unexpressed, you come
and hover over the home-brew and speak
in random piano notes some fellow makes
to ornament his wit. Soft eyes gleam
through the tobacco smoke; once more a flush
runs over those cheek bones: your pale, quick smile —
then you are off with books under your arm,
journeying round this world, blind to its vanity.

Some day, perhaps, when this life's reel is run
and flickered out, and all your friends have left
their seats for strangers; you'll leave this movie-show
and find outside in fresher air your pleasure
of heavenly colleges set amid living waters.
Your friends will "hallo" you, bear you off to join
the saints who sing and dance about the Virgin,
and on the cool evening there to hear
a Voice that walks among the apple trees.





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