Thursday, December 27, 2012

Not to be Forgotten

photographer unknown


Attended, last evening, an event to honor my friend, poet laureate, and exemplary human, Bruce Dethlefsen.  Wrote this little piece for the gathering::

Forgotten
after Bruce Dethlefsen
on the conclusion of his term
as Wisconsin Poet Laureate

I forget each street by street
each road by road
your purple truck
cross-hatching
Cross Plains to Crivitz.
The joys and pains.
As if it’s out of mind, now
your Wisconsin
cow by cow
their black and white.
I forget each day of days
the Champagne flight
of word by word
that tomato
that celebrated spread of mayonnaise
all gone again.
Each morning, each memory
flying bird by bird.
There, totally forgotten
the life by life
turned poem by poem.
Your laureate, bardic ways.

italicized lines stolen from Bruce Dethlefsen,
and herein returned by           Ralph Murre

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice words, Ralph. Very nice words. I can always trust you to find your way around words. Wish we could have been there.... Steve

Anonymous said...

lovely tribute to a lovely man by a lovely poet. thanks, Ralph, for saying what many of us would have said, if we had your beautiful way with words...
~ Sharon Auberle

Marilyn Taylor said...

Wish so much that I could have been there, Ralph. But I was there in spirit. I just hope my spirit remembered to throw its arms around Bruce and tell him what a brilliant job he did as Poet Laureate. Bless him. And bless you, too.