Robert Lavett Smith- A Poem

TRUE TO HIS FAMOUS TAG LINE

i.m: Leonard Nimoy, died February 27, 2015

He passed at 83, leaving no doubt,
True to his famous tag line, he’d lived long;
Forty two million net or thereabout
Suggest he also prospered—am I wrong?
His lungs were ruined, but his spirit, strong:
He played a character without emotion
So passionately we were swept along,
Offering him our unreserved devotion.
His death evokes Newton’s first law of motion:
He’s left us, but continues on his way;
The loss unsettles us like an explosion;
Perhaps we’ll meet him in the stars someday.
For now this vanished icon of our youth
Still speaks with vision, clarity, and truth.


Son of the noted ichthyologist C. Lavett Smith, 1927-2015, Robert Lavett Smith was raised in New Jersey, and has lived since 1987 in San Francisco, where for the past sixteen years he has worked as a Special Education Paraprofessional. He has studied with Charles Simic and the late Galway Kinnell. He is the author of several chapbooks and three full-length poetry collections, the most recent of which is The Widower Considers Candles (Full Court Press, 2014).Two poems from this newest book have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.