August 14-October 25, 2018

From the English Patient

I know of one who studies English

loves the language and its rule

who kindly binds up any blemish

that words may be one’s perfect tool

Who at times may read my poem

and to my words add sage advice

but suborning form to legal function

o'erthrows my oddly formed device

Yet when confront by greater truth

than grammar's laws of proper usage

yields unstopped to public fancy

smiles with those whose voices rage

How odd that one to form adhering

would the higher form so swift decry

who truth abuses as I do grammar

our convenient roads to careless ply

On someone’s comment on my poem

"On Vermeer’s Hat” that ‘we’ is poor

grammar and should instead be ‘us’.

Who yet throws God’s truth aside for

the world’s deceptive words.