Poems of Despair

Yesterday I did a few things to try to make myself feel better while my country is on fire in the midst of a pandemic. I worked out–on facetime–with my trainer. Then I went for a walk–sunshine, blue sky, beautiful blooming things. I was listening to an early Joan Baez album, nothing political, folk songs about love gone wrong. But then she hit a few piercing high notes, and I started to weep. And there was no solace–not in the blue sky, nor the poppies nor the peonies, not in the wisteria vines nor the clematis draped over fences. There was no solace anywhere. And when I said so later to friends they all offered bits of hope–things are about to change, wait until fall, it’s bound to get better. Everything sounded like tired bromides. When I refused to be cheered one said, “Well, I’ll leave you to your despair.” And I thought, yes, please. There are times when we need to just sit with it, and with its cousins grief and helpless rage. When I read poems written in the midst of despair it’s as if an understanding stranger is sitting with me for as long as I need. Maybe some of these will do that for you. And I’d be grateful if you want to add your own suggestions.

 

#340

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,

And Mourners to and fro

Kept treading – treading – till it seemed

That Sense was breaking through –

 

And when they all were seated,

A Service, like a Drum –

Kept beating – beating – till I thought

My mind was going numb –

 

And then I heard them lift a Box

And creak across my Soul

With those same Boots of Lead, again,

Then Space – began to toll,

 

As all the Heavens were a Bell,

And Being, but an Ear,

And I, and Silence, some strange Race,

Wrecked, solitary, here –

 

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,

And I dropped down, and down –

And hit a World, at every plunge,

And Finished knowing – then –

Emily Dickinson

*

 

ASPEN TREE

Aspen Tree, your leaves glance white into the dark.
My mother’s hair was never white.

Dandelion, so green is the Ukraine.
My yellow-haired mother did not come home.

Rain cloud, above the well do you hover?
My quiet mother weeps for everyone.

Round star, you wind the golden loop.
My mother’s heart was ripped by lead.

Oaken door, who lifted you off your hinges?
My gentle mother cannot return.

Paul Celan

*

 

SHEEP IN FOG

The hills step off into whiteness.
People or stars
Regard me sadly, I disappoint them.

The train leaves a line of breath.
O slow
Horse the colour of rust,

Hooves, dolorous bells –
All morning the
Morning has been blackening,

A flower left out.
My bones hold a stillness, the far
Fields melt my heart.

They threaten
To let me through to a heaven
Starless and fatherless, a dark water.

Sylvia Plath

*

CHARLOTTESVILLE WINTER

Tomorrow is history, lead singer of nothing;

unfurnished spirit, chair

selected from the curb–

little manual on

my desk, the oven door.

Franz Wright

*

SMALL PRAYER

Change, move, dead clock, that this fresh day

May break with dazzling light to these sick eyes.

Burn, glare, old sun, so long unseen,

That time may find its sound again, and cleanse

Whatever it is that a wound remembers

After the healing ends.

Weldon Kees