Friday Poem

Poetry
Art and Environment
Edward Hessler

Two-time Pulitzer prize winning poet Richard Wilbur died October 4, 2017, age 96. He was one of the great gifts to American poetry and also a renowned translator of poetry.

Wilbur was a graduate of Amherst College and a remembrance of him and his career may be found on MassLive. I include another from The New Yorker, a publication to which he was a frequent contributor. This tribute to him ends with two evocative lines from the last poem he published in that magazine, "For now, the long blue shadows of these trees / Stretch out upon the snow, and are at ease" (Sugar Maples, January).

His poems never fail to please and inform me as well as challenge my sensibilities so it is not easy to choose just one. So what to do?  Choose a favorite, that's what! It is a poem I read it this time of year and perhaps you do or have as well.