Welcome back to the Daily Poem here in the Close Reeds Podcast Network. I'm David Kern.

Today's poem is by Paul Mariani. He was born in 1940 in New York City and is a professor

currently at Boston College. Mariani's published work includes six biographies and seven

volumes of poetry. And in 2009, he was

given the John Charity Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry. He's been honored with fellowships

from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for

the Humanities. The poem that I'm going to read today is called quid pro quo. And I will just say that there is a

reference to something that is a little bit adult. So if you typically listen with your kids,

you may want to listen first and then decide whether or not you think that it's okay to listen

with them. I know there's quite a few children

who listen. Normally I wouldn't do that. It's a pretty mild reference, but given the circumstances,

you may want to consider that first. Normally, I won't even consider reading poems that are

questionable in nature, but I think this one is worth considering. So again, this is quid pro quo

by Paul Marioni.

Just after my wife's miscarriage, her second in four months,

I was sitting in an empty classroom exchanging notes with my friend,

a budding Joyce scholar with steel-rimmed glasses,

when lapsed Irish Catholic that he was, he surprised me by asking what I

thought now of God's ways toward man. It was spring. Such spring as came to the Flint-backed

Shenango Valley 30 years ago, the full force of Siberian behind each blast of wind. Once more, my poor

wife was in the local four-room hospital, recovering.

The sun was going down, the room's pine-wood panels, all but swallowing the gelid light,

...