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For an English Teacher 

Matthew Buckley Smith

You died, but it was not your words that faltered. You’d husbanded the language all your life, And when at last your friends and students metTo share a few brief speeches,...

Letter to a Middle-Aged Poet 

Matthew Buckley Smith

Nature and history have made us what we are, fat hapless amateurs stranded some ninety million miles from the nearest star, and if I can be candid,as I always try to be with those...

Spontaneous Loss

Matthew Buckley Smith

Those early weeks, you could have been anyone,   Too young for fingerprints, much less a name,And years away from our first catch-and-toss—   A little flesh and blood, no brain,...