Terence on the Terrace
Sipping a dry martini, with a garlic-stuffed olive,
I am thinking how happy I am to be
clinking glasses with you, my friend,
in this virtual universe where virtue is rare
and you've got it. “The valiant never taste
of death but once,” may not be true but is
magnificent rhetoric, defined broadly
as an argument with everyone, which
the valorous will inevitably lose, though,
as in a chess game, one can always resign
rather than face the music if checkmate.
is inevitable. Writing a happy hour sonnet,
you aim at levity, but the levitation
cannot defeat the earth's gravitational pull.
David Lehman 11 / 1 / 24 [Happy birthday, TPW]