THANKS

 

Thanks to Michael Cross for finding Thanks at Serendipity for me. It’s an unusual volume; a hardcover book containing just two short poems (“Theresa’s Friends” and “Thanks") written for Theresa Turner, Creeley’s “’mentally retarded’” red-headed Irish housekeeper from childhood. The book contains two illustrations by Timothy Engelland, and was published simultaneously by The Deerfield Press in Massachusetts and The Gallery Press of Ireland in December, 1977. All were signed by Creeley.

Thanks

Here’s to Eddie—

not unsteady

when drunk,

just thoughtful.

Here’s to his mind

can remember

in the blur

his own forgotten line.

Or, too, lest

forgot, him in the traffic

at Cambridge, outside,

lurching, confident.

He told me later,

“I’m Catholic,

I’m queer,

I’m a poet.”

God bless him,

God love him,

I say,

praise him

who saves you time,

saves you money,

takes on the burden

of your own confessions.

And my thanks again

for the cigarettes

he gave me

someone else had left.

I won’t escape

his conversation

but will listen

as I’ve learned to,

and drink

and think again

with this dear man

of the true, the good, the dead.

—KS