“Atlas,” by U. A. Fanthorpe, from Safe as Houses

 

[Atlas is the Greek God who holds up the sky]

 

There is a kind of love called maintenance

Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;

 

Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget

The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;

 

Which answers letters; which knows the way

The money goes; which deals with dentists

 

And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,

And postcards to the lonely; which upholds

 

The permanently rickety elaborate

Structures of living, which is Atlas.

 

And maintenance is the sensible side of love,

Which knows what time and weather are doing

To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;

Laughs at my dry rotten jokes; remembers

My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps

My suspect edifice upright in air,

As Atlas did the sky.

 

“The Function of Poetry” by Billy Collins

Reflections/ Research on Teaching Cultural Studies and Literature

Teaching Literature and Staying au courant – The Man from Nowhere and the Ancient Greeks

Using Cultural Understandings to Improve Teaching, part 1

 

U.A. Fanthorpe

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ua-fanthorpe

U A Fanthorpe