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A Second Train Song for Gary

By Jack Spicer 1925–1965 Jack Spicer

When the trains come into strange cities

The citizens come out to meet the strangers.

I love you, Jack, he said

At another station.

When passengers come in from strange cities

The citizens come out to help the strangers.

I love you too, I said

From another station.

The citizens are kind to passing strangers

And nourish them and kiss their lips in kindness.

I walk the unbelieving streets

In a strange city.

At night in cold new beds the welcomed strangers

Achieve in memory the city's promise.

I wake in love with you

At last year's station.

Then say goodbye to citizens and city

Admit this much—that they were kind to strangers.

I leave my love with you

In this strange city.

Source: Poetry (July/August 2008).

Biography

Although known primarily among a coterie of poets in the San Francisco Bay Area at the time of his death in 1965, Jack Spicer has slowly become a towering figure in American poetry. He was born in Los Angeles in 1925 to midwestern parents and raised in a Calvinist home. While attending college at the University of California-Berkeley, Spicer met fellow poets Robin Blaser and Robert Duncan. The friendship among these three poets . . .

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