John Updike died today.

When I heard the news, I was transported back some 30 years to a small classroom at Case Western Reserve University. The building was so old that the afternoon sun shone on hardwood floors as Updike read his poetry to a tiny audience.

The writer was on campus to see an old friend, a professor at CWRU. I don't know why he read only poems that day, and not selections from his better-known novels or essays. Although I saw in the Times obituary that John Updike was a tall man, I remember his features as rather elven, his eyes twinkling, his skin flushed and rough with psoriasis. For a famous writer, he seemed shy and profoundly pleased by our response to his work.

I vividly recall Updike's tender reading of his poem "Dog's Death." This prosaic account of the sudden loss of the family puppy contained one hauntingly luminous line: