Birthday sonnet
for William Packard
I hear your clear voice these five years later:
“David’s psalms are the greatest collection
of verses.” As if on elevators,
we huddled in silence, blank reflections
on faces, left mute by your legend.
Stout-bodied, heavy-bearded, unoffended,
you with searchlight eyes refused to pretend
we had heard: “I’ll repeat that.” And you did.
Now, listening alone to Olivier’s
sharp consonants crack like crisp lettuce,
I wonder how you’d respond to his ways
of altering tone from lisping softness
to shouts. Still, I pray for what David sees:
“…he shall give his angels charge over thee…”
Roger Armbrust
September 2, 1999
