"The act of living is different all through. Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything."
-A Grief Observed.
-A Grief Observed.
Not there.
Not there.
And yet I know the number.
45 Mercy Street.
I know the stained-glass window of the foyer,
the three flights of the house with its parquet floors.
I know the furniture and mother, grandmother, great-grandmother,
the servants.
I know the cupboard of Spode the boat of ice, solid silver,
where the butter sits in neat squares like strange giant's teeth on the big mahogany table.
I know it well.
Not there
I walk in a yellow dress and a white pocketbook stuffed with cigarettes,
enough pills, my wallet, my keys,
and being twenty-eight, or is it forty-five?
I walk. I walk.
I hold matches at street signs for it is dark,
as dark as the leathery dead and I have lost my green Ford,
my house in the suburbs,
two little kids sucked up like pollen by the bee in me and a husband who has wiped off his eyes in order not to see my inside out and I am walking and looking and this is no dream just my oily life where the people are alibis and the street is unfindable for an entire lifetime.
Pull the shades down I don't care!
Bolt the door, mercy,
erase the number,
rip down the street sign,
what can it matter,
what can it matter to this cheapskate who wants to own the past that went out on a dead ship
Not there.
I open my pocketbook,
as women do,
and fish swim back and forth between the dollars and the lipstick.
I pick them out,
one by one and throw them at the street signs,
and shoot my pocketbook into the Charles River.
Next I pull the dream off and slam into the cement wall of the clumsy calendar I live in,
my life,
and its hauled up notebooks.
-Anne Sexton
Not there.
And yet I know the number.
45 Mercy Street.
I know the stained-glass window of the foyer,
the three flights of the house with its parquet floors.
I know the furniture and mother, grandmother, great-grandmother,
the servants.
I know the cupboard of Spode the boat of ice, solid silver,
where the butter sits in neat squares like strange giant's teeth on the big mahogany table.
I know it well.
Not there
I walk in a yellow dress and a white pocketbook stuffed with cigarettes,
enough pills, my wallet, my keys,
and being twenty-eight, or is it forty-five?
I walk. I walk.
I hold matches at street signs for it is dark,
as dark as the leathery dead and I have lost my green Ford,
my house in the suburbs,
two little kids sucked up like pollen by the bee in me and a husband who has wiped off his eyes in order not to see my inside out and I am walking and looking and this is no dream just my oily life where the people are alibis and the street is unfindable for an entire lifetime.
Pull the shades down I don't care!
Bolt the door, mercy,
erase the number,
rip down the street sign,
what can it matter,
what can it matter to this cheapskate who wants to own the past that went out on a dead ship
Not there.
I open my pocketbook,
as women do,
and fish swim back and forth between the dollars and the lipstick.
I pick them out,
one by one and throw them at the street signs,
and shoot my pocketbook into the Charles River.
Next I pull the dream off and slam into the cement wall of the clumsy calendar I live in,
my life,
and its hauled up notebooks.
-Anne Sexton
إن وراء وحدتي وحدة أبعد و أقصى.
و ما انفرادي للمعتزل فيها سوى ساحة تغصّ بالمزدحمين.
و ما سكوني للساكنين فيها سوى جلبة وضجيج
إنني حدث مضطرب هائم بعد، فكيف أبلغ تلك الوحدة القاصية؟
إن ألحان ذلك الوادي تتموج في أذني،
وظلاله السوداء تحجب الطريق عن عيني،
فكيف أسير إلى تلك الوحدة العلوية؟
-جبران خليل جبران ،المؤلفات الكاملة
و ما انفرادي للمعتزل فيها سوى ساحة تغصّ بالمزدحمين.
و ما سكوني للساكنين فيها سوى جلبة وضجيج
إنني حدث مضطرب هائم بعد، فكيف أبلغ تلك الوحدة القاصية؟
إن ألحان ذلك الوادي تتموج في أذني،
وظلاله السوداء تحجب الطريق عن عيني،
فكيف أسير إلى تلك الوحدة العلوية؟
-جبران خليل جبران ،المؤلفات الكاملة
"I cannot make speeches, Emma...If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it."
-Jane Austin, Emma
-Jane Austin, Emma
Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.
-Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle
Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.
-Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle