sorrow
It’s something I’ve never experienced in so absolute a way, so it hurts my heart in a vague, fairy-tale sense to hear about other people’s losses. My heart can easily suffer and mend by proximity, however — I have no idea how devastatingly painful and numbing the actual experience of losing someone important permanently must be.
ORROW is my own yard– The Widow’s Lament In Springtime, William Carlos Williams
This poem is painful to read, partly because of the odd line breaks. It feels like the narrator is gasping for breath, that to finish an entire sentence is so difficult it takes several attempts. The imagery is perfect because it describes a glorious springtime, an idyllic backyard paradise, and the sharp contrast between it and the widow’s heart. Any description of the feelings the widow is actually experiencing would have likely been useless and inadequate; instead, the complementary terms in the poem describing what is not allow the readers the freedom to extrapolate and emote freely.
The last line is an expression of absolute despair. The narrator hasn’t even made a concrete wish for death; it seems that requires to much focused thought and energy. She simply wishes to “sink,” a strikingly appropriate word choice for the situation.
This poem’s simplicity is a little jarring. It’s raw, it’s real — it genuinely hurts.
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How do you feel, Rachel, about knowing that this was not written by the widow herself but by William Carlos Williams? I wonder why that knowledge doesn’t mitigate the pain that you feel reading it. Your thoughts?
Posted November 19, 2010, 9:40 am #Perhaps William Carlos Williams, like me, has a larger-than-life idea of the ways in which this widow must be suffering. But his idea still resonates so much with me that it’s difficult to take, no matter what its background.
Posted November 19, 2010, 11:33 am #