LOWELL'S POSTURE

With little pocket money
and a Kennedy half dollar
Lowell's posture
climbs up in shadows
of Beacon Hill
safe from mind racing
in stepping out of the rain
from the Widener library
pacing up and down the courtyard
with a privileged bard's endurance
among silhouettes of knowledge
tracing with his "Imitations"
by acing literary illuminations
of Western culture,
now at summer school
facing students at Harvard College
who encircle me in the yard
with a quiz kid justice attitude
feeling restless at summer school
yet coiled with lean soundbites
on Lowell's prudent moods
yet outlasting unsealed archives
on a vacation's equilibrium
in a four semester's stasis
from fortresses
of insight learning
wishing for
a yearning amanuensis
where the  many lives
of a poet survives.