11/4/18 (An Elegy) Poem by Don Fox

I tried to write you sonnet
Full of pararhymes
And archaic phrasing
But it was futile.
So, sincerely,
And selfishly,
I wished you had lived on to give more.
I hadn't thought about it much
Before today,
But you probably would've been fine
Dying right right you did.
It got much worse.
It even happened again;
Same nations, same hatred,
Plus all-new unimaginable horrors
And decades of disgusting aftermath
Still looming today.
I want to say, though,
You did the bravest thing
I've ever heard of
By diving for your muse
Beneath the bedrock
Of human dignity
To bring it back to the surface
For the rest of us to know.
Demonic sermons
Recanted in angelic wit,
Like a curse on a curse.
All while somehow
Keeping your heart intact.
That was your life's work.
And it sits beside me right now
Bound into a single volume,
Which deserves,
A thousandfold,
The time stolen from you.
So for you, my hero,
Let us all sleep now
And wake from a dream
Of war so arid and shallow,
The depths of peace
Were all there were
To plumb instead,
And summon it to life.


-for Wilted Owen, on the centennial of his death