I am not resigned

As noted previously, April is National Poetry Month. Today, Tim tweeted a link to this evocative blog post by Megan Mayhew Bergman about Steepletop, home of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. An exchange between Tim and me in reference to those dreadful stairs made me want to read some of Millay’s poetry.

This collection is from my late mother’s library, so the first thing I did was open the book to the page the ribbon marked. One never knows if that’s random, or is meant to provide quick access to a favorite poem, or was just a stopping place for a reader. But as I’m one to want to find meaning in even the simplest acts, I can easily see my mother reading this poem. Stopping to look away and think. Reading it again. Dreaming over it. Remembering. Being moved by it and relating to it.

My mother and I are alike that way.

Dirge Without Music

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind.
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,–but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,–
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

My mother, Millay, and I are alike that way.