PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

I met the dying poet, very old
(by then) one late spring, sunny afternoon,
in that small guest-reception room inside
the student union at a small mid-west
college called Westlering, reputedly
far more expensive than most of its peers,
far more exclusive than the pleasant lawns,
small slopes, and flowerbeds, and its own creek
(Duck Creek that ran northwest to southeast through
the campus, never deeper than two feet).
To my eyes, Westerling resembled a
suburban park surrounded on all sides
by fifteen academic buildings and
eight dormitories.  I had asked for this
late interview, despite his failing health
("Physicians offer me two months at most"),
because I had promised the article
to editors not very tolerant
of flattened failue or undue delay.
I watched him enter, walking slowly with
a limp and a metallic cane to ease
the stress.  His gait was slow, as one might think.
His stature was just average, not more.
He had dressed in a steel gray, three piece suit
over a white shirt.  He resembled, more,
some mid-level, corporate executive,
than an acclaimed poet whose several books
sold neither better nor worse than others'.
In deference to his condition---frail
and feeble of the flesh; and yet the mind,
they told me, and the tongue were still quite sharp---
I had agreed that he should speak only
as long as he felt up to it---the choice
of topic left entirely to him.  (I
was but a ghoul, only there to obtain
what I hoped would be his last interview;
a kind of artefact that, when he passed
away, would rise in value and propel
my name to prominence among scholars).
Here let me now:  throughout this session, I
addressed him only by the pseudonym---
the appellation some call bardic name---
and not by his mundane identity,
the one by which he signed his tax returns.
The transcript of the conversation is
not much longer than this---I have removed
only my words, the few questions I asked,
in order for this first reading to be
his words, just his, and not the few I said.