A Lonely Man

When we walked out, that windy summer night,
Passing right by the raving lunatic
Who has his post downtown and, well or sick,
Declaims, defames, raging against the light
(Or maybe it's the darkness), we took fright,
As we had done before. You clutched your stick,
I held my breath. His accent was too thick,
Our sensitivities perhaps too bright.

The questions I was asking just got switched:
What sort of person is a lonely man
Who reads the classics, when he ought to scan
The ocean into which his wife was pitched?
What good is culture? Are our lives enriched?
We know that pigs speak Latin, when they can.