ROBERT LOWELL'S DATA

In the Widener library
in Cambridge at Harvard
a younger bard
is going over your data
seeking what knowledge
you gathered in your way
in self revelation
assured that your wandering
words of language
shadowed your long suffering
in the breakdown lane
now forced to taking
heavy medications
at the mental ward
of suburban McLean's
reading of your pain
that drew me near
though younger
when I froze
writing my early poetry
on paper planes
inscribed in Latin
as I returned my clothes
from the laundry
after playing Chopin
and attending matins
with bread and wine
running into Lowell
on Beacon Hill
being humbled
without resentment
thrillingly telling me
to have courage
though I was trembling
in his audited class
over a sunlit window
instructing me
from space and time
electrified by his poetry
taken off the shelves
from the shadow' s abyss
catching a language's fire
that will outlast
times and moments
past comprehensive ages
hungering on the shelves
in an expansive hunger
needing your compliment
in an offbeat arbitrary desire
that was not intimidating
from a fictional discovery
by my climbing ivy into sunlight
your hands open to shake mine
inside the lexicon's dictionary
suspecting to be certainly
at the library all night.