Celebrating Poetry
The poem for the month of August is "For Edna St. Vincent Millay" . . . .
FOR EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
If death finds me
Before turning to you,
Do this, somehow,
If somehow it can be done:
Carry my body to Austerlitz
And drag it up the hill,
Through the woods at Steepletop
To the place where the poet lies
Submerged in the ground,
Adrift in death
And turning in time,
Suspended, like an ancient seed
Beyond the reach of roving worms.
Carry me through empty night
When others have retreated
To the comfort of homes
And take me, quietly,
Up the hill, beyond the firs
And further still,
Through somber summer air
Or winter’s cold indifference
But, take me there, in any case,
Through paths that still resound
With the echo of her rapid step,
Beyond the basil and verbena
That, in a garden, wait for her;
Past ryegrass fields from which she saw
The day descend and night withdraw,
To the ground that holds her modest grave
Marked, simply, by a common rock
And when you find it, stop
And dig my grave upon a spot
Beside the one in which she lies.
Dig with diligence and speed
With all your strength and will;
Create a berth that’s wide and deep
So that I may rest for the rest of time
Forever in her company;
And, when your work is done,
Recite a quiet prayer for me
And say a prayer for yourself as well
And pray for Edna St. Vincent Millay,
Say “amen” and let me drop
And do your best to cover me up.
I’ll utter not a word
For a century or two, at least,
For fear that I might disrupt
The subtle process of her thought
But, when the time is right,
I’ll cough, quietly,
To let her know that I exist;
And, in time, let fly
A remark or two
That I’ve rehearsed
A thousand times through the course of years
To sound spontaneous and, yet, profound
(Regarding, perhaps, the banality of death).
And, in time, she shall speak to me
And we shall converse, from time to time,
With ever increasing frequency,
About all and everything,
Of matters great and trivial,
And anything that comes to mind
(for the silence of death is unbearable).
And she will, one day, understand
That her temperament is very much like mine
And, inevitably, we shall spend our days
In dialogue, like old friends
Each unable to abandon the other
Without expressing a final thought,
and then another,
And chat away as decades pass
Like moments pass within a dream
And we shall, no doubt, laugh out loud
And gossip in rapid code,
And speak of traumas that haunt us still
And loss that came as we grew up
And regret that came as we grew old,
And we shall periodically exchange
The truths and secrets that may be shared
only by those who have lived and died.
Eventually, the day will come
When she will teach me how to see
The whole of all and everything,
And set me on the road
That winds through time
To hold, again, my hidden heart
That, long ago, I left behind
(misguided as I was back then)
And she will show me how to see
The beauty of the world
Through which I pass,
Illumined by light luxuriant
That lights the way
And warms the path.
In a thousand years,
When worms and insects
Have had their fill,
Our bodies reduced to dust
And lost like drops of rain
Upon the ground,
I’d ask her (oh so carefully)
What manner of vision it was
That brought her face to face
With God each day,
And enabled her to see
The world with utter clarity,
And find simplicity in beauty
And beauty in simple things,
And point to it and say to me:
“Hello, it’s there, in front of you“;
I’ll ask how it felt to see
A sky that others couldn’t see,
And hear the loon’s soft melody
Inaudible to the rest of us,
And what it was, one afternoon,
That prompted her to wander off
While lost in thought,
And trip along the gilded edge
of Autumn’s long perimeter
And, in a sudden, stop and lean
Against the rusted wire fence
And linger there to contemplate
The endless, fallow fields of death.
In time, I’d ask her how it was
that she could simply sit
Upon a chair before her desk
And lift her pen into the air
And set it down upon the empty page
And convert those holy things to words,
Destined to outlive the very things described,
Secure within the sanctuary of those words,
So appropriate and apt,
Sensual and wrapped in light,
Rhythmic, aromatic and serene,
Alive as images upon the page
like photos in a picture book,
Myriad, wonderful things:
Sullen rocks and graveyards,
Trembling lips and orange peels,
Barren weeds and half-closed eyes,
Moss and mist and beached fish,
Pigeons and the scent of lavender,
things that were loved and things that died,
Images that can be touched and seen,
Alive in words like words in a song
That shouldn’t be recited
But should, instead, be sung.
Though I was born into the world
Long after she had left it,
I will ask how it came to be
That she could know me perfectly,
And how it could be
That, through her words,
I found myself on a ferry boat
Riding back and forth all night,
Aimless and exuberant,
And saw, through her words,
a shawl covered head
And, ever since, have felt the weight
Of death’s relentless gravity;
And how it could be
That, through her words,
I once did see, in front of me,
Three long mountains and a wood
And I beheld, as well,
Three islands in a bay,
And, most important,
How it was that, long ago,
On a quiet night,
The open book upon my lap,
I turned the page and, suddenly,
I wasn’t there but somewhere else
And, somehow, had come to Steepletop
And sat amid the cottongrass
Beyond the spruce and sycamore,
Past trillium and pitcher plants
And as I sat, in ecstasy,
The sun rose up in front of me.
About this poem: I think my love of poetry began with the poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay. There's nothing I can write that hasn't already been said. For the sake of full disclosure: I learned, after the poems was published, that Millay was actually cremated. This might detract a bit from the narrative of my poem (though, in fact, her ashes are buried at Steepletop). I hope this doesn't upset or offend - but, to that person, I say: we still have much in common.
"For Edna St. Vincent Millay" first appeared in The Esthetic Apostle, January, 2019