In this place, the Vera Cruz of the ancients, where

I followed my trade as best I could and wrote my

best and good poems (throwing away the rest),

they hold their conference, but they do not pay

any special homage to me. Even the author of an

account of my brief existence after the close of

the Master’s life chooses to talk about his own work

and his vocation rather than my modest, yet more

than competent, poems, poems that he once took

to be the expression, oddly, of what he calls a “real”

person. It is not betrayal I feel, not exactly. It’s more

like the pressure of sadness felt like heavy engulfing

air that breaks one down and down, metaphorically,

of the temporary and temporizing bends. Waiting

too long is all of that and nothing else that matters.

Oh blessed Lear, who chose even the dead-wrong

action over the long, slow wait for fairness or love.

Apr. 30, 1988

George Monteiro is professor emeritus at Brown University, and a distinguished scholar of American and Portuguese Literatures.