"Richard Noel"
Listen to Harry Thomas read this poem.
He said he'd be absent a week,
**and when I asked him why,
he looked away from me.
**A small boy, and very shy,
he never spoke in class,
**except to tell us about,
say, bees or the Burgess Shale.
**I couldn't figure him out.
Two or three minutes passed—
**as much as I could stand.
Then: "There's a tumor on
**my pituitary gland."
He hadn't slept well in years;
**watched scientific shows.
The doctor to remove it
**would enter up his nose …
To finish the long profile
**his grade depended on,
the afternoon before
**the surgery, alone,
he worked late in the library.
**I saw him typing away.
On my desk were his ten pages
**the first thing the next day.
Over the years I, too,
**have had hard things to face.
But when did I once summon
**such fortitude and grace?
Harry Thomas is editorial director of Handsel Books, an affiliate of Random House, and teaches at Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge, Mass.
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