Preview of Alnilam Summary:

In Dickey's poem "Diabetes," the narrator goes blind because of his illness, and the poem develops some of the themes that Dickey would expand in Alnilam. He cannot find a justification for his own mortality: the loss of youthful powers is irreplaceable by wisdom of any nourishing vision of the remainder of life. There are no rituals or rites of passage for the mid-life adult male to undertake to redeem himself. He can...