Unanswered Letter

I never answered the letter sent me

More than fifty years ago by an editor

Who took it upon himself to explain

Why he had to reject the poems I’d sent his journal,

A letter listing the many instances

Of mannered diction and runaway metaphor.

Two typed pages, single-spaced,

That now seem incredible, knowing as I do

That if he gave every packet no better than mine

The same attention, he couldn’t have lasted

More than a month at his job without collapsing,

Unless he needed just an hour of sleep each night.

Two pages, though he may have surmised

How unlikely it was I’d write to thank him,

How easily I’d dismiss his critique

As just what might be expected when a work

Of youthful genius like mine encountered

A timid gatekeeper of the status quo.

However relieved he was when he left his post,

I hope he never thought of the work as useless,

That he always mentioned it in the vita

He sent around to prospective employers

As someone might mention a stint of service

Fighting wildfires in our national forests,

Risking his life for the public good. And I hope

He believed that a few who never wrote back

Might end up writing a poem like this one,

Thanking him in absentia for fighting awhile

At an outpost of beauty in danger at any moment

Of being surrounded and overrun.