[lit-ideas] Re: On Finding a Friend Dead
- From: "atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:05:39 -0600
ERIC:
> not sure if Mike's poem is news, an old memory, or
> pure invention ... unwilling to commit a response
> to one possibility.
I'm embarrassed to have sent something so personal to the list. I hope I
didn't make anyone embarrassed for me. The event did happen, on February
17. Her mental life had long been was in turmoil, her emotional life in
complete tatters. The person I had fallen in love with 21 years before had
very nearly disappeared, becoming this confused and inept person who seemed
to always be struggling to remember where she was and what she was supposed
to be doing. I resented that she had designated me "rescuer". It made me
angry at her and myself that I could not just say no and walk away. It was
not a pretty relationship. So much begrudging and anger on my part. Anger
and hurt on hers. I had gone to her house that night because she was not
answering her phone and the body shop kept calling me wanting to know what
she wanted to have done about her wrecked car. I let myself in with the
hidden key. The dog was ecstatic to see someone. I kept calling out her
name, went to her bedroom and that's where I found her. My first reaction
was anger that she was dead. Another mess to be dealt with, more shit to
be straightened out. Christ! I called the police and waited while they did
their thing. Later that night, one of my kids asked if I was OK. I
started to say yes, that I'd not felt any affection for this woman for
many years. But just as I was about to answer my breath was sucked away.
I felt like I was falling or that everything was falling away from me. A
sudden, terrifying emptiness. A part of me had just died and I hadn't
realized it, doing what needed to be done. I was deeply surprised at this
sadness. Later I remembered Hopkins' poem:
To A Young Child
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By & by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep & know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
--Gerard Manley Hopkins
So I set out to try and let loose the sorrow that had sprung up in me with
such surprise. I wrote a "poem" to the only people I thought might
understand and judging from the expressions of sympathy, I think I was
right, but perhaps it was a bit too personal for such a public venue. In
that case, I beg your indulgence.
Mike Gear
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