A poem written to honor Dr. Arthur Smith (1948-2018). Smith was a mentor to thousands of UT students and an award-winning poet who taught at UT for more than three decades.
By Marilyn Kallet
Sometimes
“Sometimes nothing helps,” you wrote.
None of us believed that.
We thought love, good dogs,
modern medicine, those cuttings
that stayed crisp.
We thought poetry, and we
were right about that.
I think no, you can’t be
gone. Some cuttings
are too cruel.
The terror
you felt was
swept by love, swifts,
great loss––
ours, now.