Another old master dies

Stanley Kunitz
July 29, 1905 – May 14, 2006

.."My dear, is it too late for peace, too late
For men to gather at the wells to drink
The sweet water; too late for fellowship
And laughter at the forge; too late for us
To say, “Let us be good to one another”?
The lamps go singly out; the valley sleeps;
I tend the last light shining on the farms
And keep for you the thought of love alive,
As scholars dungeoned in an ignorant age
Tended the embers of the Trojan fire.
Cities shall suffer siege and some shall fall,
But man’s not taken. What the deep heart means,
Its message of the big, round, childish hand,
Its wonder, its simple lonely cry,
The bloodied envelope addressed to you,
Is history, that wide and mortal pang."
--Stanley Kunitz, from Night Letter

"..You write your poems in order to find out what you mean, who you are. You're always working out of a cloud of unknowing in the hope of moving into a little area of light. I can't tell how many poems are left in me, but I'm aware of a blind stirring that leads me on. The curious thing, when I consider the course of my life, is that I have begun at this age to think of myself as a reasonably happy person. I wonder if I could ever have said that before...."
Interview:

"Stanley has managed to do what many of us fear is impossible," Howe once wrote. "He is a poet and he is sane." - LA Times obituary
Thanks to Woods Lot