Howard Nemerov

Howard Nemerov was the brother of Diane Arbus, but is equally famous as a poet, a Poet Laureate of the USA and a Pulitzer Prize winner. Following the death by suicide of Diane he wrote:

To D-, Dead by Her Own Hand

^{My dear, I wonder if before the end}

^{You ever thought about a children’s game—}

^{I’m sure you must have played it too—in which}  

^{You ran along a narrow garden wall}  

^{Pretending it to be a mountain ledge}  

^{So steep a snowy darkness fell away}  

^{On either side to deeps invisible;}

^{And when you felt your balance being lost}

^{You jumped because you feared to fall, and thought}  

^{For only an instant: That was when I died.} 
 

^{That was a life ago. And now you’ve gone,}

^{Who would no longer play the grown-ups’ game}  

^{Where, balanced on the ledge above the dark,}  

^{You go on running and you don’t look down,}  

^{Nor ever jump because you fear to fall.}