To D—, Dead By Her Own Hand

My dear, I wonder if before the end

You ever thought about a children’s game—

I’m sure you must have played it too—in which

You ran along a narrow garden wall

Pretending it to be a mountain ledge

So steep a snowy darkness fell away

On either side to deeps invisible;

And when you felt your balance being lost

You jumped because you feared to fall, and thought

For only an instant: That was when I died.

That was a life ago. And now you’ve gone,

Who would no longer play the grown-ups’ game

Where, balanced on the ledge above the dark,

You go on running and you don’t look down,

Nor ever jump because you fear to fall.

Howard Nemerov was born on February 29th, 1920 in New York. He died of cancer at his home in University City, Missouri on July 5th 1991.