Welcome back to the Daily Poem here on the Close Reeds Podcast Network. I'm David Kern.

Today is February 4th, 2020. And that means that today is the 50th anniversary of the death of poet Luis Bogan.

She's a poet that I've read a few poems from over the last few months. She was an American poet and was the fourth poet laureate to the

Library of Congress in 1945 and spent much of her life as a poetry reviewer for The New Yorker.

The poem that I'm going to read today, I wanted to read in recognition of her life and her work,

and it is called Men Loved Holy Beyond Wisdom.

It goes like this.

Men loved holy beyond wisdom have the staff

without the banner.

Like a fire in a dry thicket

rising within women's eyes

is the love men must return.

Heart, so subtle now and trembling,

what a marvel to be wise to love never in this manner.

To be quiet in a fern, like a thing gone dead and still,

listening to the prisoned cricket shake its terrible dissembling music

in the granite hill this is a fascinating poem that is full of very very interesting images

that'll get your imagination going and perhaps be a little confusing at times.

For example, we have the staff without the banner, which suggests of knights riding into battle.

We have a fire in a dry thicket rising within women's eyes, representing the love, a woman's love that men must return.

We have someone being quiet in the fern, listening to a prison cricket shake its terrible, dissembling music in the granite hill.

So a prison cricket singing, even though it's surrounded by prison walls.

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