I. A Joke

You dared me once to write a six-beat line.
I'd asked you why pentameter became
the norm, and there were many reasons: hard
for it to split in half or three and fail
to function as a line; not sing-song like
tetrameter, but long enough to make
a statement without rambling on. But six
feet somehow didn't work: it always seemed
like four and two, or three and three, or five
and one.

The paper says you passed away the other day.
They'll bury you on Friday, six feet underground.
That's one too many feet. I'm sure you would complain.

II. A Question

You told me once you never could decide
if Eliot or Yeats had been the best
to ever live. You'd vacillate between
the two, and when you had decided, say,
that Eliot had won, you'd read a bit
of Yeats and reconsider it again.

The paper says you passed away the other day.
I wonder if you've yet to pick your favorite.
You'll probably lecture him on how he can improve.

III. A Hope

I said once that a feeling was like death,
and you corrected me by pointing out
my simile was incomplete, for death
was one thing poets can't describe, or can
describe but incompletely. Death's unknown,
so any simile or metaphor
could only guess at what it would be like.

The paper says you passed away the other day.
I hope that it's as I imagined it to be:
that heavy, silent calm; the rest after the song.

In fondest memory of Dr. Robert Kirkpatrick, 1939-2004