words in air

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... Do

you still hang your words in air, ten years

unfinished, glued to your notice boards, with gaps

or empties for the unimaginable phrase —

unerring Muse who makes the casual perfect?

Almost 20 years after they met, Lowell wrote to Bishop: "How wonderful you are, dear, and how wonderful that you write me letters. What a block of life has passed since we met."

When Lowell died, Bishop wrote an elegiac poem called "North Haven," referring to the island in the Penobscot Bay where both had spent time:

You left North Haven, anchored in its rock,

afloat in mystic blue ... And now — you've left

for good. You can't derange, or re-arrange,

poems again. (But the sparrows can their song.)

The words won't change again. Sad friend, you cannot change.

Words in Air, correspondence between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell
 

 via: here