for Herb Leibowitz

That this is the way it’s always been done—
the old devolving to the callow young

the gold of their experience, the green
gleaning off the seasoned their maturity—

subtracts but little from my debt to you.
My burden grows, in fact, because so few

now trouble to pass on, without reward,
the living knowledge they inherited.

And culture too, and history, are deep
in hock to those who make tomorrow keep

alive the verities of yesterday.
Such patrons are deserving of a place,

a peak, beside the muses they abet—
they who teach us what we’d otherwise forget.