Previous Friday Lack of Poetry, and Friday Poetry: Donald Justice

Excuse the delay.

I learned two weeks ago that a young woman I knew, my classmate from kindergarten through twelfth grade, has died. The delay was caused by my desparation to find the Perfect Mourning Poem, the ideal epitaph. I've since concluded that that's impossible. The poem below, for some reason, is the closest to anything I'm thinking or feeling right now. In addition, go here and here and check out "Stories" and "Garcia," respectively. I had not seen this woman for years, but she was a lovely and exponentially talented human being.

Donald Justice
Variations for Two Pianos
For Thomas Higgins, Pianist

There is no music now in all Arkansas.
Higgins is gone, taking both his pianos.

Movers dismantled the instruments, away
Sped the vans. The first detour untuned the strings.

There is no music now in all Arkansas.

Up Main Street, past the cold shopfronts of Conway,
The Brash, self-important brick of the college,

Higgins is gone, taking both his pianos.

Warm evenings, the windows open, he would play
Something of Mozart's for his pupils, the birds,

There is no music now in all Arkansas.

How shall the mockingbird mend her trill, the jay
His eccentric attack, lacking a teacher?

Higgins is gone, taking both his pianos.
There is no music now in all Arkansas.