Oysters with Auden

Mid-week poem, celebrating the great W.H. Auden

Oysters with Auden

I read Auden with elation.
And he, like all good fruits,
pursues me to the station—
I hear the creaking of his boots.

I press him for his advice
on the aesthetics of the sonnet;
he said it would be nice
if fourteen lines were in it.

I read Auden with elation;
I do not spare the rod,
for he is like unto a nation
where poetry is God.

A hungering pen hung poised
over an abyss of sheet white;
would Wystan have rejoiced
if I’d worked at it all night,

and placed this pretty paucity
like a pebble at his feet,
and proved that his poetry
is difficult and deep?

Like a drowning oyster diver,
I flounder under the swell:
the pearls of this rare writer
cling tenaciously to the shell.

I hold him in the highest regard;
I read his poems with elation.
And although the carapace is hard,
he shines like a constellation.