Three years ago my dubious job
meant leaving the garden daubed with mud
to drive my boss to her Chatterbox Club,
where, with luck invited in, I would
hear book reviews, eat and drink
with elder ladies who paid the check.
I heard you read your poems, and think
America's best is Anthony Hecht.

Last year in Greece my neighbors were
the travellers, Joan and Paddy Leigh Fermor.
I mailed your latest book and they replied
they thought such mastered poetry had died,
leaving them fossils of a more formal age.
I hear they doted on your every page
and toasted you in snow-bound Rochester;
to that effect, I am our courier.
...