Kathleen Griffin (October 5,1948 / New York, New York)

I had wanted to write your elegy
on the subway,
Old Poet of another Eastern city,
ever since my Russian student e-mailed
her office all your February rose-lit
tulip-tinted green and wavy
after-image of the UN building.

I have wanted to recall
the Adam’s I and eye, the garden master’s
roses on Long Island, the tough and cocky
mariner. The voice comes back
at dusk, beside an artificial tree,
your friend’s flat Upstate accent
like your own, more humorous
and less engaged.
Old Poet,
who grew
and colored brightly all your world,
“I salute.”