Failed Elegy

It seems these days
every poem is a failed elegy

for the world. Each one
asks correctly, what good

did writing this do? I cannot
deny I often feel anger

at the similarities between me
and an oil company, especially

on what is once again
the hottest day ever recorded.

It is so easy to do nothing
except lament our success

at writing useless laments.
I must confess I too

once wrote a ridiculous elegy
for a broken nail clipper.

I said it caught the light
of a distant star where beings

look down on us, disappointed
yet hopeful we will, like poets,

put things in the right order
just in time. The clipper

emitted a confusing not very
mysterious blue light. Sometimes

it seems to me the job of a poet
is mostly to rearrange the deck chairs

next to a perfect blue
swimming pool, then in those

chairs to doze. In another failed
elegy I described how all day

we walked through mist to get
to the exact spot where Dean specified

we should disperse his ashes.
It was windy, and we got a lot of him

on our hands. In the poem I wrote
he shares the name of a chef

at Infinity Hospital, which sounds
like but is not a beautiful lie.

Then I wrote, when I imagine how
he must have felt to try to write

poems with a new heart
he got from someone younger

who died, I feel mine
fill with the echo of replacement,

which was not exactly or perhaps
too true. The truth is I walked

along through the mist thinking
many boring things, not feeling

much of anything except
like stopping. We walked

through a field of wildflowers
that left some yellow powder

on our shoes. I just wanted
to be home with my wife and son,

but the mist really did seem endless.
Unlike death, it was not. We drove

slowly through the little town
until we found a place to eat

and did not speak of death.
Speaking of speaking of death,

Emily Dickinson compared herself
to the little wren because she knew

it was small and unremarkable.
It sings the most notes and sometimes

will take a ride for a little while
to eternity in the overcoat

of a passing stranger.

This poem appears in the December 2024 print edition. It has been excerpted from Matthew Zapruder’s collection, I Love Hearing Your Dreams.