When I Read David Budbill Died

David Budbill was I poet who lived in VT, died last September. He often referred to himself as "Mt. Judevine," borrowing the meme of the ancient Chinese Tao poets, who used the name of the mountain they lived on as their own.
Leonard Cohen was more commonly well known. Google him if you need his deets.


When I Read David Budbill Died

  When I read David Budbill died
I heard no Judevine mountain cry,
  No one enlightened glorified,
No breath detained to sake his name,
  It’s oaks still waive and toss the same

  When black dressed Leonard Cohen passed,
What changed his songs, made us bereft,
  Since then has his voice cracked, or cleft,
As if old Hamlets’ ghost had breath,
  As if a hallowed voice bore heft

  We poets spin wide webs of words,
In gravitas, we beg be heard,
  Then we depart, on wings like birds,
When we take rest in the constant Earth,
  Will the World increase, or shed, in girth?
As light as air,
  Are our words worth