[New-Poetry] Chess poem for Bobby Fischer

[jforjames at aol.com]

One of my childhood heroes died yesterday. So here's a poem by another
hero of mine in tribute...

Me and Capablanca


The sultry first night of July, he on the bed
reading one of Chandler's lesser novels.
What he should be doing is in the other room.
Today he began carrying wood up from the valley,
already starting on winter. He closes the book
and goes naked into the pitch pines and the last
half-hour of the dark. Rain makes a sound
on the birches and a butternut tree. There is not
enough time left to use it for dissatisfaction.
Often it is hard to know when the middle game
is over and the end game beginning, the pure part
that is made more of craft than it is of magic.

--Jack Gilbert, The Great Fires

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