After Dickinson III
This poem appears in The Love of a Good Man.
For Rebecca Burrows
Life is too short to wait for joy—
To halt as kettles boil—
And rest, while fire animates
With lusty froth and roil.
Life is too brief to wait for chance,
To squander lovely time—
And wait for better things to come—
That is the highest crime.
You will not find if you don't seek—
Or worse: You stand to lose
All measure of your cleverness—
In footprints of your muse.
But if you scale Mount Helicon,
Your music shall take flight.
Joy shall not be—believe you me—
For good shortchanged by life.