CHRISTOPHER MIDDLETON'S LIFE
(1926-2015)

You left us a year ago
remembering your lectures
in the library hall
when I could not sleep
so amazed at your culture
that circled our minds's
that I now recall
you connected to me
so deeply with a precise
understanding of poets
on a contrary generation's past
that in my adolescent sense
deposited your writ and wit
as you captured my verse's pun
in the shade of my spirit
now you too in memory's glue
have been translated
to another heaven for the few
critics who directed us
in an understated task
we will not forget you,
good Christopher Middleton
if you would could ask
there are no secret regrets
from the land of the dead.