Bernard Lane: ‘Burying the lede’ and ‘The last Janeite’

Burying the lede

Long may the masthead prosper
And editors-at-small
Multiply like pull quotes.

If history’s first draft
Never finds room for modesty
And dynasties spring from copykids,
Then even the dimmest stars
Expect their turds to twinkle.

Bernard Lane

The last Janeite
In memory of Patricia Lane, 29 April 1929–5 September 2021

You’d know that German word
“Grief-hunger”, but you’re beyond
All language now, and the clock
Has stopped you at 92.
Nobody gets out of here
Alive—and you, you avid
Reader, curl up
In eternity’s chair,
All that verse and song gone,
Leaving only the shimmer
Of your smile, unreadable
And searching, as if to solve
The whodunnit of your life—
Cast as a hardboiled romantic,
The last Janeite of Leura.

Bernard Lane