Images imagined and recalled br rain on the masterpoet’s mind like mist br that lubricates the lips that have enthralled br him in the past, but he has never kissed. br br Inspired by Robert Lowell’s “Epilogue, ” cited by Thomas L. Jeffers in the October 2003 issue of Commentary: which begins: br br Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme–– br why are they no help to me now br I want to make br something imagined, not recalled. br I hear the noise of my own voice: br The painter’s vision is not a lens, br It trembles to caress the light. br But sometimes everything I write br with the threadbare art of my eye br seems a snapshot, br lurid, rapid, garish, grouped, br heightened from life, br yet paralyzed by fact. br All’s misalliance. br Yet why not say what happened? br Pray for the grace of accuracy br Vermeer gave to the sun’s illumination br stealing like the tide across a map br to his girl solid with yearning. br We are poor passing facts, br warned by that to give br each figure in the photograph br his living name.