Flaubert wanted to write a
About nothing.
It was to have no
And be sustained upon the style alone,
Like the Holy Ghost cruising
The abyss, or like the little
In Disney cartoons who stand upon a
That breaks, but do not
Till they look down.
He never wrote that novel,
And neither did he write another
That would have been called La Spirale,
Wherein the hero's fortunes were to
In dreams, while his walking life disintegrated.
Even so, for these two
We thank the master.
They can be read,
With difficulty, in the spirit alone,
Are not so wholly lost as certain
Burned at Alexandria, flooded at Florence,
And are never taught at universities.
Moreover, they are not deformed by style,
That fire that eats what it illuminates.
Howard Nemerov was born on February 29th, 1920 in New York.
He died of cancer at his home in University City,
Missouri on July 5th 1991.
