Probably this is an April Fools' joke without intending to be.
*Some*thing was said here that made the wheels move.
COMMON SPACE
Me. William Carlos Williams.
Utter presumptuousness.
It is presumptuous to say lives intersect
by the accident of physical proximity
yet they intersect by the accident of
physical proximity.
I lived in Lyndhurst, New Jersey,
from April 1997 to August 2000.
I lived across the highway from Rutherford,
Williams' home town.
Long before, in 1977, I'd worked in that town.
I'd pass the house at 9 Ridge Road, the house
his son--also a doctor--took over.
Are poets remembered? Everything in Rutherford
it seems is named for Williams: the library,
an Arts Center, everything but the train station
and veterinarian's office.
An intersection. A woman I worked with in 1977
years before had as her pediatrician
Doctor Williams, and then his son who also
was Doctor Williams, and she was shocked when I told her
the older man was among America's greatest poets.
She couldn't line it up. She remembered
a nice old guy who made house calls
and had a kindly bedside manner.
If he's giving you a needle
his touch matters more than his poetry.
The last time I saw the house, a young woman
was playing out in front with her toddling daughter.
Did they know the heritage they'd bought?
There was no plaque until five years after I'd gone.
Until then it was just another house,
a place to live in.
Can Poetry Matter? Not when you've got your hands full
with a toddler running amok.
He is buried in Hillside Cemetery in Lyndhurst.
There are two sections: Jewish and Everyone Else.
Dr. Williams was an Everyone Else.
I never visited the grave
because the poetry matters, not
the common mortal reek
or the aesthetics of stonecutting.
KTW/4-1-07
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Ken Wolman rainermaria.typepad.com
"It takes a big man to cry. It takes a really big man to
laugh at that man."
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