I know most people call you Vincent.

May I call you Edna?

 

Please don’t think me rude, a prude,

 

You assert – in beautiful verse —

Iambic and rhyming —

That those who have left

Cannot take away the love you had with them.

We cannot live any other way.

 

You burn the candle at both ends

And fight to keep the flame alive.

 

Much has happened since you wrote.

If we’re not wiser, we are, perhaps, more modest.

 

Consider:

Does a comet go down in flames

Or does it continue in the cycle of life and death

For all time?

There is grace in living and dying.

In loving, giving

And letting go.

 

August 2017

(On reading the great American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay)