MEMORY OF ANTHONY HECHT
(1923-2004)
JAN 16 BIRTHDAY

Life was suspended
for that unsuspecting hour
as Anthony Hecht
read his powerful phrases
directing our minds to our nature
trading in the literary Muse
at long sought- out words
over his loose quatrain of thought
who taught us to think and choose
to open our own unsuspected gifts
from imagination's poetic lore,
without an arbitrary excuse
for our own sinecure
with his own politic translation
into a passionate critical spirit
arranged from his own calculation
as he crossed his knees
on a large academic chair
over a Oriental rug
awesome in his elevated insight
at an ease of reading
as Anthony excels in a legacy
with ill fated signs connecting
to unfold new worlds
through a mighty ear of language
filling in what love attracted
and not left or lost by his age
for he reads slowly on pages
of an unsettling horror of war
reflecting over his words his view,
giving us in the audience
bereft of a second chance
to renew our impressions
of his bountiful commentary
when memory revives that time
of personal adolescence
each January the 16th
an original voice is gone
reaching out from a train ride
in the coolness of our direction
when visiting his unique presence
at my third visit to Manhattan
as if upon Hamlet's stage
at hearing his personal soliloquy
of verse set to musical showers
on the back of a swan
somewhere near Emma Lazarus
as her poem will deliver justice
over the icy brackish waters
to sons and daughters
on Ellis Island
as they land by the Hudson River.