'As Imperceptibly as Grief'

 

 

 

Larry Welo

 

 As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away—
Too imperceptible at last
To seem like Perfidy—
A Quietness distilled
As Twilight long begun,
Or Nature spending with herself
Sequestered Afternoon—
The Dusk drew earlier in—
The Morning foreign shone—
A courteous, yet harrowing Grace,
As Guest, that would be gone—
And thus, without a Wing
Or service of a Keel
Our Summer made her light escape
Into the Beautiful. 

 

Emily Dickinson 

 

Dickinson has a way of putting everything in a poem

 without making it heavy.

A sadness without wallowing. A lightness without taking lightly.

And that "our Summer" - I see how one word changes everything.

Are the passing seasons of my life an "escape into the Beautiful"?

Or do I look back with regret at what is gone?

Into the Beautiful - !

That's where I want to go.

                                                          

 

 

 

Fall, Leaves, Fall

Eliot Hodgkin

Fall, Leaves, Fall

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;

Lengthen night and shorten day;

Every leaf speaks bliss to me

Fluttering from the autumn tree.

I shall smile when wreaths of snow

Blossom where the rose should grow;

I shall sing when night’s decay

Ushers in a drearier day.

Emily Dickinson

What a departure from the expected, to encourage the leaves to fall, to impatiently wave flowers away! Miss Dickinson has an independent, contrary mind. When we bemoan the seasonal change, she cheers it on. Urging the darkness to come, she actually anticipates the shorter days. And that amazing line, "Every leaf speaks bliss to me/Fluttering from the autumn tree." Well, I can see that. Today especially is one of those where the sun has backlit the trees, so that the gold and scarlet and orange flame up, and seem incandescent with light, with an inner fervour. I love summer, but summer doesn't burn and blaze like autumn. Autumn is alive with fire, with a combusting, consuming energy. And each detail, each leaf, is individual in its change. Each its own work of art; it's own palette of colour and pattern of splotched decay. I can see that this is a kind of bliss. And the poem goes further, speaks of snow as a wreath and a blossom, and I can't disagree with that either. Snow is gorgeous. A white, untouched field of snow is a kind of heaven. The millionfold sparkle that reminds us of diamonds or stars - and the knowledge that each flake is utterly its own self, its own shape, and unique from all others - I agree, this is a wonder. Why would I not look forward with expectation to all these?! But then she says the strangest thing, she says (as if it were the culmination after a long period of waiting), that at the dawn of a grey and dreary day, "I shall sing."

I shall sing!!

Really? Hmmm. And then I think, well, yes, like the leaves speaking bliss to her in their falling and dying, the poet also sings (to herself, to us, to all who listen) in the dreariness, the greyness of life, because she herself is fervent with colour and fire, because she is blazing. Because she too has a leaf-like beauty, a beauty deepened over many seasons of growth and decline, the colours of victories and loss, and she has something to look back on and something to look forward to. She has something to sing about. (And for.)

My gosh, is it possible that we do too?

I Have a Bird in Spring

 

Holly Meade

I Have a Bird in Spring   I have a Bird in spring Which for myself doth sing -- The spring decoys. And as the summer nears -- And as the Rose appears, Robin is gone. Yet do I not repine Knowing that Bird of mine Though flown -- Learneth beyond the sea Melody new for me And will return. Fast in a safer hand Held in a truer Land Are mine -- And though they now depart, Tell I my doubting heart They're thine. In a serener Bright, In a more golden light I see Each little doubt and fear, Each little discord here Removed. Then will I not repine, Knowing that Bird of mine Though flown Shall in a distant tree Bright melody for me Return.   Emily Dickinson   I don't know when I first began associating little birds with my children (maybe everyone does with theirs too).   It may have started with that poem "little birds" by e.e.cummings (first blog post) -  I've loved it for so long, and when my kids came along I saw them in the words.  However it developed, the fact is, a picture of a little sparrow or wren,  or any small bird, brings them immediately to mind.    So that print by Holly Meade, to me, is my daughter,  who would have been 13 years old today.    I think of her in that "truer Land" every day.