Elysium is as far as to
The very nearest room,
If in that room a friend await
Felicity or doom.
What fortitude the soul contains,
That it can so endure
The accent of a coming foot,
The opening of a door!
[Emily Dickinson]
Happy Thanksgiving, Dan. I'm sorry you didn't call.
Call me or write me before Christmas, and let's get together then for lunch. We'll find a place open, even if I have to boil some spicy shrimp and bring it and some cocktail sauce down to Banneker Park at noon so we can sit on a park bench and eat overlooking the DC Waterfront. The hour would surely go swiftly, seven years is a long time to catch up on! I hope you and your two older brothers are doing well on this day of solicitude.
Love, Dad.
Showing posts with label Emily Dickinson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Emily Dickinson. Show all posts
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Saturday, November 17, 2007
On Finishing
Has anyone ever died in your life? I hope not, but probably so.
Her final summer was it
And yet we guessed it not
If tender industriousness
Pervaded her, we thought
A further force of life
Developed from within,--
When Death lit all the shortness up,
And made the hurry plain.
We wondered at our blindness,--
When nothing was to see
But her Carrara [marble quarry in Italy] guide post,--
At our stupidity,
When, duller than our dulness,
The busy darling lay,
So busy was she finishing,
So leisurely were we!
I remember going with a friend, not so long ago, to see her friend die. As he lay in cancerous agony in a hospital bed, with some remote relatives in the room, we came in. He knew who my friend was, and was glad to see her. She had come a long way to see him.
I stayed in the background. My Dad, and then my Mom, had died of wasting, lingering illnesses and I think I knew that people who are departing are working at leaving, but they want to leave at the exact right moment. They want to leave on their own terms. I think this is hard to do.
Somehow a political squabble developed in that hospital room. Those remote relatives weren't liberal enough or something, and ever more fervent messages, couched in subtleties, started getting passed back and forth by strangers. I looked at the agonized man. His eyes were closed tightly as the retorts gained quiet stridency.
Suddenly he sat up! Get out! Get out! he commanded. Then he sank back into his hospital bed. We all left in hushed reverie. He died a day later, with no one there. This has always bothered me. Some succor!
So busy was she finishing,
So leisurely were we!
The poet is Emily Dickinson.
Her final summer was it
And yet we guessed it not
If tender industriousness
Pervaded her, we thought
A further force of life
Developed from within,--
When Death lit all the shortness up,
And made the hurry plain.
We wondered at our blindness,--
When nothing was to see
But her Carrara [marble quarry in Italy] guide post,--
At our stupidity,
When, duller than our dulness,
The busy darling lay,
So busy was she finishing,
So leisurely were we!
I remember going with a friend, not so long ago, to see her friend die. As he lay in cancerous agony in a hospital bed, with some remote relatives in the room, we came in. He knew who my friend was, and was glad to see her. She had come a long way to see him.
I stayed in the background. My Dad, and then my Mom, had died of wasting, lingering illnesses and I think I knew that people who are departing are working at leaving, but they want to leave at the exact right moment. They want to leave on their own terms. I think this is hard to do.
Somehow a political squabble developed in that hospital room. Those remote relatives weren't liberal enough or something, and ever more fervent messages, couched in subtleties, started getting passed back and forth by strangers. I looked at the agonized man. His eyes were closed tightly as the retorts gained quiet stridency.
Suddenly he sat up! Get out! Get out! he commanded. Then he sank back into his hospital bed. We all left in hushed reverie. He died a day later, with no one there. This has always bothered me. Some succor!
So busy was she finishing,
So leisurely were we!
The poet is Emily Dickinson.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
I lost a world the other day...
Now that I'm not running for awhile, I have some time on my hands. I could use it for reflection.
I went out and bought The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson. I love her poems, and other than Shakespeare, I look to her the most for inspiration when I'm deeply moved by things.
She apparently wrote 1,775 poems before she died in 1886 at the age of 55. Here's one from the Time and Eternity section.
I lost a world the other day.
Has anybody found?
You'll know it by the row of stars
Around its forehead bound.
A rich man might not notice it;
Yet to my frugal eye
Of more esteem than ducats.
Oh, find it, sir, for me!
Uh, I think runnin' means a lot to me. Who knew?
I went out and bought The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson. I love her poems, and other than Shakespeare, I look to her the most for inspiration when I'm deeply moved by things.
She apparently wrote 1,775 poems before she died in 1886 at the age of 55. Here's one from the Time and Eternity section.
I lost a world the other day.
Has anybody found?
You'll know it by the row of stars
Around its forehead bound.
A rich man might not notice it;
Yet to my frugal eye
Of more esteem than ducats.
Oh, find it, sir, for me!
Uh, I think runnin' means a lot to me. Who knew?
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