The Death of Randall Jarrell

It's hard to say what happened on that night
By weaving highway traffic heading home,
Our scholar standing in the dark, alone
Cars flashing like some dreadful metronome.

Him or his madness indicating then
That helpless schlub It’d chosen from afar,
In desperation, fate, or force of will,
He steps towards the mercy of that car.

All this of course meant little to me when
Just on a whim his Poetry & Age
Was rescued from the silverfish, half priced,
Discovered like lost work by some great sage.

I have it still (now held with rubber bands)
A frightful thing; the critic armor-clad
Demanding quality should light the way—
Like Shaw I felt that reason drove you mad.

Your sense that man by words could be redeemed,
That things the world made ugly could be still
As noble as when life was still at play,
Conveyed through verse’s calculated thrill.

Why suicide, we'll likely never know.
From under rocks those writers you gave hell
Crawled out, that night bad poets could rejoice:
At last they need not dread Randall Jarrell.

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