Driving to Syracuse

I’m not obliged to offer a lift

To the young man standing on the shoulder

A hundred yards ahead with his thumb stuck out.

I’ve made no promise, after all,

Directly or indirectly, to meet him here.

As for the question whether, obliged to or not,

I ought to stop, that depends on whether

I suppose I’ll be better off pretending

That this stranger was in fact a friend.

And if I do suppose it, the question remains

Whether now is the time to show I do.

Don’t I have a duty more pressing to use

The three-hour drive to Syracuse as I’ve intended:

To enlarge the remarks I’m to make this evening

At my late friend’s memorial service?

Instead of merely listing his many virtues,

I should tell a story to show a few in action,

A story presented with the vividness and the wit

That my friend would have been delighted by.

No doubt he’d have accepted my reasons for stopping

And then for feeling obliged to make conversation.

But this is no time to turn to my friend for sympathy.

It’s time to help him by leaving my listeners

With a sharper sense of his uniqueness,

So they can bring him to mind more vividly

In the years still left them. Of course, if I leave the speech

Just as it is, it’s possible when I rise to give it

I’ll be inspired by a flow of eloquence

Not available to methodical preparation.

But a plan ought not to be based on a faith in miracles.

Better the faith that somebody else

Driving this afternoon to Syracuse will offer

The young man the ride that I haven’t offered,

Somebody looking for company with the living only,

Not with the living and the dead.