I’d like to share a poem by the Irish writer John F. Deane that I came across in the July/August 2026 issue of Commonweal magazine:

This Paltry Ego

You are running, delighted, up the rough-made
laneway to the lake where you are sailor, eel-fisher, 
pilot; it’s after-school time, you are free-bird, lark
and soaring; turf-banks, and the rickety green door
into the wood-shed; on the unsafe, rough-plank
boat you have built, you will raise a sheet-sail
to explore the reeds and small, boggy inlets,
sweet breezes accompanying, silence, your own
sensual pleasures, and high anticipation; 
                                           then
on your way, you meet the old man, poet prophet, 
coming down the laneway, bearded, a little stooped, 
back from the distinguished Fellowship he has held, 
there by the shores of Lake Michigan, its flotillas
of swift-moving yachts, its waters stretching away
to far horizons;
                                    you meet, alter and aliud, 
your Other and Stranger; you meet where age-old
boglands and bright campus together have fallen still
as in a painting, and suddenly, all you have known
is a nothingness, a nowhere, a now, an always;
a moment of silence falling away from the old
rickety door that opens out of, and into, eternity.

For “ego,” the Latin word for “I,” the dictionary gives meanings connected to Descartes, Hume, Kant, Freud, and others. It refers to the self or consciousness, while also evoking self-esteem on the one hand and egotism on the other. Not my ego, but this ego, right here, close at hand. And it’s “paltry,” a word derived from dialect terms associated with coarse cloth, rags, and trash; it means inferior, worthless, contemptible, trivial, or slight.

“You”: the first word of line 1, a second-person address, is a surprise. In the Commonweal printing, the title is followed by the author’s name, which led me to link the title to Deane—that he’s the one with the “paltry ego.” When I moved to line 1, I took “you” to mean that Deane was addressing himself. But I don’t think that’s the case. Who is this “You”? Is it singular or plural, intimate or accusatory?

There’s immediate action: “You are running.” I expected the stress to fall on “are,” but that sounds awkward. I hear it instead on “You.” The comma after “running” makes me linger. The action is happening now: “you are running,” not “You run delighted.”

“Delighted,” framed by commas, conveys intense gratification and lively pleasure. Deane spotlights it so we take it in fully. Less heightened than exultant or ecstatic, it suggests sheer joy we can touch and savor.

Deane next splits an adjective-noun combination across the line: “rough-made / laneway.” A “laneway” is a colloquial British term for a narrow road or path. The poet’s pace quickens through the alliteration of “laneway” and “lake,” followed by the repeated “you are.”

Deane doesn’t say “a sailor” or “the sailor.” I hear the line flowing faster in “you are sailor,” then slowing in “eel-fisher,” with the comma, and the line ending. This is a rural scene. There’s no family, community, society, or nation; no religion or history. There are simply “you” and the small world this “you” inhabited when young, with all its nostalgic allure.

At the start of line 3, the running “you” is also a pilot, a helmsman steering a boat. A semicolon pauses the motion. “Rough-made” becomes “rough-plank”; the “you” that was a person—sailor, eel-fisher, pilot—is a bird, the soaring lark. Action abounds: running, soaring, building, raising, exploring, with shifts in tense: “you are running”; “you have built”; “you will raise.”

Then comes the five-syllable “anticipation,” followed by an oddly placed line break and the isolated “then.” The poem changes direction. “On your way,” you meet the “old man, poet prophet.” A hyphenated “poet-prophet” would describe a person unifying both roles, a visionary whose poetry encourages moral or social change. Deane’s unhyphenated phrase, in contrast, keeps the identities slightly apart: poet and prophet, perhaps a prophet whose medium is poetry.

The man is old, bearded, and stooped, yet has returned from a capitalized “distinguished Fellowship.” There’s wistful recollection in “the shores of Lake Michigan” and “far horizons.” We no longer hear of a homemade “boat,” but of swift-moving “yachts” in “flotillas”—small fleets, a word with military associations.

After another awkward line break, Deane repeats “you meet.” Is he describing something that has occurred, is occurring, or will occur, or all three at once?

“Alter and aliud”: I wondered whether this was a misprint for “altar” and “aloud.” “Aliud” is Latin for “another thing” or “something else.” Deane knows most readers won’t recognize it. This estrangement prepares us for the perplexing, half-serious, half-comical meeting of “you” with your “Other and Stranger.”

Suddenly, the “you” undergoes a revelation, apparently a negative one. “Nothingness” comes first, then “nowhere”: nonexistence, absence, perhaps zero or the end. “Now” is elusive. Bound by sound to “nowhere,” it’s the third term in an alliterative series of n’s before “always.” It’s “a moment of silence,” not prolonged. When I voice “rickety,” I hear the shaky, tottering sound of the door—a sensory detail counterpointing the abstract meditation.

Here we are, each of us an “I am.” Early in this life, all is enchanting and integrated: breezes are “sweet,” silence enriches happiness, sensual pleasures abound, and we anticipate more. Surely this isn’t “paltry.” But how much do we retain? Does maturity make us more or less?

Time teaches that experience impinges upon us and eludes comprehension. As children, we can build and “pilot” a boat; as we grow older, we encounter the unexpected, jolts to mind and nerve that alienate us from ourselves. Life is a long journey with twists and turns and complications, as is this poem, which is a single sentence we move through, negotiate, and seek to apprehend.

Release and relief come with death, when we are projected into the unknown. This transition from paltry ego to the nothingness that is eternity is exhilarating and terrifying. In this respect, “The Paltry Ego” of Dean’s title is both bracing and painful, an expression of clarity and insight: we’re not as important as we think we are.

There’s no mention of God, but, as the poem closes, I feel it’s beckoning toward a spiritual response—an answer that no literary text can provide and no human voice can supply. The mystery of the ego and its world is too immense, too formidable. Our experiences and memories are beautiful, but we’re so little. We wonder what we have amounted to and where we’re going. What will we find in eternity?

William E. Cain is Mary Jewett Gaiser Professor of English at Wellesley College, where he enjoys teaching courses on Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and other American writers. His recent publications include essays on Edith Wharton and Ernest Hemingway.

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