Letter to Home

I'm exhausted. I try to keep myself alive; nights, at home
By stocking sandwiches, and showering, and climbing into bed,
Then waking to a buzzing phone, the rush, the busses' drone, days
Enclosed in class-rooms or the fat, grim biblous sanctum.
My only pleasures are composing verse, and reading
Wordsworth, the swelling of whose lines, especially his Preludes
And liberal meditations, is like a clearing flood, pouring from a spacious urn,
That in the torrent of its grace, purifies my hands, freshens my face,
And seeps into a much besiegèd mind. For Greek I am assigned
Thrice doubled pages on the Odyssey, but I (and more than Wordsworth)
Hath exceeded the charge, so that the stack accumulates
And now I burden empty words on something like twice eight --
Nor can I drop the load, as long as an even virgin cranny of the text
Feels unexposed. In Latin I slog through Afric wars, and view
Jugurtha, hot child of the sun, who rich with gold implores
Rome's general ruin; Sallust's style limpid makes one to forget
The tribulations he describes, or yet ascribes, and interrupting from the clear
Is here or there a well placed jibe. I think I'll write on his biographies
Of notorious personalities, descending by degrees, from virtue, to licentious,
Then beset on every side or (worse and minor) merely rude. But as these idle rhymes
Cheer an indulgent whim, already the moon sinks, already angry Tithonus spurned
And his willing consort dawn in concert plot to bring another day, and haste
Another looming deadline, with his chains cruel, his barbs that strain
Already anxious brow, and his long shadow, stretching more
Than morning's dials or of aging noon. So as this letter wings to you
'Cross thousand miles carried on a limping thought, bethink yourself
To good replies -- economies, the business of our house; the weather,
School, and pleasantries; and, of course, our residence in Taos --
Even paltry things, the state of our dog's tail, just anything to lift my cares,
And by delay bring slight refrain to a perilous grief. Good night.