Recorded in my father's-in-law truck on a dirt road between Spanish Fork and Springville, on my way to Hobble Creek. It was raining, and I decided to turn around, but the road was deserted so I just stopped right there and recorded this episode.
I didn't mention in the recording that this poem is a villanelle, which is a quirky little form that requires a lot of planning on the poet's part. The repeated lines that echo and then repeat in the final stanza? That's the villanelle at work. There's usually something kind of audacious about a villanelle, but this poem pulls it off so effectively, it is as if the entire form were created just for this one use, right here.
TEXT OF POEM
"Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.