Still Life
In memory of Judy Birdsong (1954-2017)
Her make-up in an open drawer,
bristles that touched her face.
In the walk-in closet we shared,
her jewelry box, scarves,
a few loose pills scattered,
that pair of shoes we missed.
Still Life
In memory of Judy Birdsong (1954-2017)
Her make-up in an open drawer,
bristles that touched her face.
In the walk-in closet we shared,
her jewelry box, scarves,
a few loose pills scattered,
that pair of shoes we missed.
If you need a poem to help you cope with death, Emily Dickinson is your gal. I’ve read Richard Sewell’s 2 volume biography, and she was, as Robert Frost famously put it, “acquainted with the night,” or as my now-over-a-decade-dead friend Tommy Evatt used to say, “no stranger to heartache.”
During Emily Dickinson’s 56 years, lots and lots of people she dearly loved died.
She spoke from experience:
After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’
And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?
The Feet, mechanical, go round –
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone –
This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –
In my case, I’m not at the “formal feeling” stage yet, probably somewhere between “Chill” and “Stupor,” but by having read Tennyson and having read Dickinson, I know someday I can look forward to “the letting go.”
I can’t stress vigorously enough to my former students how the best poetry can prepare you for (in my case, the second worse thing I can imagine happening to me) by vividly making concrete the pain of loss before it actually happens and by underscoring the universality suffering.
Metaphors fail me – dress rehearsal, inoculation?
Anyway, Miss Emily, please accept this thank you note.