Poet's Choice

The sleepers and looking hard into the face of each

And then sends them asleep again with a kiss

Or a whole night of love

and goes on and on until

The man and woman who carry the great lights of the

Knowledge of the one lover enter the room

toward which

Their light is sent and fit the one and the other torch

In a high candelabrum and there is such light

That children leap up

unless the sea swallow them

In the crossing or hatred or war against which do not

Pray only but be vigilant and set your hand to the work.

Grossman's lighting of the candelabrum is meant to arouse the sleepers, inciting us to awaken into love. Amid the sweetness of children leaping up, he cautions us to be vigilant against evil, not only to pray but to act. I'd like to crown him one of our great Low Moderns; he's Wallace Stevens with stronger stories to anchor lame minds such as my own; he's Eliot without footnotes. Like all great poets, he faithfully serves both word and world -- and us.

(Allen Grossman's "A Pastoral," "The Piano Player Explains Himself" and "The Work" are from "The Ether Dome and Other Poems: New and Selected (1979-1991)," New Directions, 1991. © 1991 by Allen Grossman.)

Mary Karr has published four books of poems, most recently "Sinners Welcome."