Daniel Hoffman, the Felix E. Schelling Professor of English Emeritus at Penn and former poet laureate of the United States, passed away on March 30 at age 89. The following poem is reprinted from his final book, Next to Last Words, which was published in April by Louisiana State University Press.
Night Journey
After thrusting
through thickets, a tangled
way opens in
darkness. Air’s tinged
with odor of leafmould,
fishscales, salt
on seabreeze. Branches part,
I break from where basalt
on beach and dark glints
of sea stretch before.
At tide’s edge, tongues
of an untended fire,
and out on black water
as through a pinhole afar
light spills, comes nearer,
torchblaze on a bier.
When it touches the shore
my lost love rises
and, holding the flame,
beckons, calling my name—
we flow through a halflight
throbbing with silence.
Applescent sifts the air
as we glide among islands.
There, thronging the shore
to welcome us, crowds
call, and gesture.
The wind stirs their shrouds.
My tall Grandpa’s there
and my Dad—“You’ve come
too soon, too far.
You haven’t done
what you have to do …”
“What is that?” I cry,
but a great fogbank furls
the island from my view
and what it was they reply
becomes one with the sway
of the sea, as the light pries
my eyes to the day.
