The Poet Who Starved

by Brett Rutherford

After Uhland

Such was his lot — each dismal day
was short and marked with sorrow,
and just as a poet ought, he withered
and quite forgotten, passed away.

He was an ill-starred baby
with only a muse hag for a nurse-maid,
and she it was who taught him
to sing whether supper came or no.

His mother, if one could call her that,
crisped early to her unmarked urn,
and so she marked his doom,
an anonymous and unread vessel
unfit for holding and keeping gold.

When all around passed pewter mugs,
flagons and cups and champagne flutes,
he was the one they scorned to cheer,
pouring the dregs on the cindered ground.

He knew the names of their vintages,
the lineage kings who had trod the valleys;
he could tell the rise and fall of empires,
but not one sip was for him!

Still, smiles came to him every Spring,
his dreams of blossoms woven,
but others hewed the trees to splinters,
boots muddying his purple stream.

When others orgied on holidays, game days
and feasts, and victory parades,
he raised his proud cup from afar —
his clear cold water; their groaning boards.

The others watched as he walked on by,
between his study and the library shelves,
thought him a being of scarcely flesh.
He must have inherited some money, of course.

"He's almost a ghost, an other-worldly man.
He doesn't live like us. Ambrosia and mead,
strange fruits and berries, a millet stew
must be the provender of his monkish days."

Dead! dead! they found him there
over the crumbs of the last saltine, the pot
of weak tea too many times infused
until it was but shaded water.

There was nothing in his house! Just papers!
Cupboards zig-zaggedy with spiderwebs,
refrigerator unplugged, a gasless stove,
plates in the sink too far gone for even mould.

At least it was easy to carry him, pine box
not much heavier than a pine box and a suit
of clothes. No hearse for him: a handcart
sufficed to roll him off to the graveyard.

His weak tread had scarcely marked the dust
when he walked of nights. Now may the earth
rest lightly on his shoulders. May someone find
those papers he left behind, and publish them.
May someone remember those words were his.