'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.

                                                          

 

 

 

Spring on the Woodland Path

Nikolai Ustinov

SPRING ON THE WOODLAND PATH

So long a winter such an Arctic night!

I had forgot that ever spring was bright:

But hark! The blackbird's voice like a clear flame!

So long a winter, such an age of chill,

Made me forget this silver birch clad hill.

But see, the newborn sunbeams put to shame

Our long dead winter: bracken fronds like flame,

Pierce the new morning's saffron-watered light.

So long, so long the winter in our hearts,

We had forgotten that old grief departs

And had forgotten that our hands could meet.

So long, so long: Remember our last May

When there was sunshine still and every day

New swallows skimmed low down along the street.

Ay, spring shall come, but shall we ever meet

With the old hearts in this forgotten way?

FORD MADOX FORD

“I had forgot that ever spring was bright.” That has been true for me. The light – the longer days – the sun-warmth – all these I had forgotten. “But see, the new-born sunbeams put to shame/Our long dead winter.” I experience that too. Like shutting the door of a dark room and walking toward a bright one. And the music of the lines – “So long, so long the winter in our hearts, We had forgotten that old grief departs/ And had forgotten that our hands could meet.” The last poem I posted (“A Portrait of Grief”, by S. Bert Kingsley) also mentioned hands. Hands that are not there to reach for us. And here, the speaker is reminded – hands can meet – they did before. Will they again? Will the old hearts meet the way they did before? A happy/sad question. Encouraged by the light, and by the resurgence of memories, but also saddened by the changes in each other and the losses we have endured.

 

A Portrait of Grief

Unknown

A Portrait of Grief

When the lean shadows speed before the sun

And the mist returns to its white cavern

And the trees wake; when the ants, one by one

Follow and seek, go seeking Day's tavern

While the mice scurry home, and the fingers

Of the muslin daisy open here-there,

Wildly scattered, and the old barn limbers

His patched roof in the warming of the air;

When the robin tumbles from sleep and goes

Rocketing into light, and the grey wind

Combs the willow fur and ruffles the rose;

When gracefully, gracefully the russet-finned

Lilac settles her house and the dawn's cup

Is full, where are the small hands reaching up?

S. Bert Kingsley

My daughter would have been fifteen today. Fifteen. What would that have been like? What would we have talked about on a day like today? What would she have wanted to do on her birthday? As we brought flowers to her grave, my son asked me, "It's her birthday, are you happy?" A loaded question. Who do I miss - the baby she was, or the young woman she would have been? Who was and is she? Even that is elusive. I loved, and love her, she was there, we were together, all of that really happened. 

A Dirge

Anita Klein, "Betty and the Bird"

A Dirge

Related Poem Content Details

Why were you born when the snow was falling? 

You should have come to the cuckoo’s calling, 

Or when grapes are green in the cluster, 

Or, at least, when lithe swallows muster 

For their far off flying 

From summer dying. 

Why did you die when the lambs were cropping? 

You should have died at the apples’ dropping, 

When the grasshopper comes to trouble, 

And the wheat-fields are sodden stubble, 

And all winds go sighing 

For sweet things dying. 

Christina Rossetti

    I need a good cry once in a while. Happy poems don't mean a thing without a sprinkling of sadness and grief. It's like salt. In this poem the question "why?" of someone who cannot answer, the irony of birth happening in Winter and death in Spring and the string of beautiful images - snowfall, grapes growing on a vine, Swallows flying, altogether make a poignant statement of contradiction and loss - life in death and death in life - it's beautiful and sad, and it's how I feel about life overall. It's the mix of tears and laughter that lies at the heart of everything.

Nor Is It Written

Kenne Gregoire

Nor Is It Written

Nor is it written that you may not grieve.
There is no rule of joy; long may you dwell
Not smiling yet in that last pain,
On that last supper of the heart.
It is not written that you must take joy
Because not thus again shall you sit down
To ply the mingled banquet
Which the deep larder of illusion shed
Like myth in time grown not astonishing.
Lean to the cloth awhile, and yet awhile,
And even may your eyes caress
Proudly the used abundance.
It is not written in what heart
You may not pass from magic plenty
Into the straitened nowadays.
To each is given secrecy of heart,
To make himself what heart he please
In stirring up from that fond table
To sit him down at this sharp meal.
It shall not here be asked of him
‘What thinks your heart?’
Long may you sorely to yourself upbraid
This truth unwild, this only-bread.
It is not counted what large passions
Your heart in ancient private keeps alive.
To each is given what defeat he will.

Laura Riding

The thing about this poem is its refusal to sugar-coat life. It does me a lot of good, somehow. Naming the bad, looking at it for what it is - a "sharp meal" at the banquet of life. I love that image too, of the circumstances as a meal, as food, a banquet. It implies so many things. That there will be different kinds of meals at different times, that sometimes it will not be good, it will be burnt, or off, or meager, or, in turn, that it might be a feast, abundant, something to savour. The hope at the center of the poem is that you may eat crow for a long time, and you don't have to say its turkey - but in spite of its bad taste, it is feeding you, you are being nourished, and it will change.