Donald Hall, one of my favorite poets and the husband of another of my favorite poets — Jane Kenyon — died this past Saturday. He was 89 — the age my mother was when she died earlier this year. Hall had first been diagnosed with cancer in in 1989; Kenyon died of leukemia in 1995.
Kenyon’s poetry led me to Hall’s poetry . . . and to his essays and memoirs. The three books pictured here were part of my “grief companions” (along with many beloveds) that accompanied me as I moved forward through many losses during the last five years.
Hall’s obituary in the New York Times ends with one of my favorite Donald Hall poems. May he rest in peace for showing so many of us how to “affirm that it is fitting/and delicious to lose everything.”
AFFIRMATION
To grow old is to lose everything.
Aging, everybody knows it.
Even when we are young,
we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads
when a grandfather dies.
Then we row for years on the midsummer
pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage,
that began without harm, scatters
into debris on the shore,
and a friend from school drops
cold on a rocky strand.
If a new love carries us
past middle age, our wife will die
at her strongest and most beautiful.
New women come and go. All go.
The pretty lover who announces
that she is temporary
is temporary. The bold woman,
middle-aged against our old age,
sinks under an anxiety she cannot withstand.
Another friend of decades estranges himself
in words that pollute thirty years.
Let us stifle under mud at the pond’s edge
and affirm that it is fitting
and delicious to lose everything.
Thank you, Sharie, for helping me to understand this poem. I’m glad you posted it. Once I am done with the book I am reading, I would like to explore poetry. I will be coming to you for recommendations.
Thank you for your comment (for which I got an email notification — YAY!). Mostly, thank you for your willingness to read and to try and understand this poem. Poetry and READING poetry are learned skills. It ain’t easy. I wish I had the talent to write poetry. I don’t, but I do know how to read it. I own more than 1,200 volumes of poetry and have read nearly all of them. I didn’t start reading poetry until I was in my forties. Then I just got hooked. A poem is like looking at a telescope the wrong way — it zeros in on details that lead the reader to wider revelations. Once this blog is up and running, I plan to add a page for book/poetry recommendations. Stay tuned!
You introduced me to both Jane Kenyon and Donald Hall. I did not meet her poetry until after she died, so I am particularly grateful to have discovered his while he was still living.
Thanks for commenting, Beth — and I received an email notification! (It’s the little things . . . but the post-notification-for-subscribers issue remains unfixed, unfortunately.)
Gwendolyn introduced me to Jane Kenyon, by the way. The 7th anniversary of her death was on Sunday. I still miss her so.
Yup, no notifications of new posts or comments on my end yet. Thanks for all your efforts to wrestle with new technology.
You’re welcome, Beth. I will not be publishing any new posts until these notification issues are resolved. The WP tech hasn’t gotten back to me — I sent a “hello-remember-me?” email this morning. Carol told me yesterday to let it all go and hopefully by the end of the month, Spark and Spitfire will be up and running without any glitches. There’s always a learning curve, and I’m someone who doesn’t like to wait. That being said, I’ve lived long enough to know that many things in life go wrong. Sometimes life is less about living and more about waiting. Thanks for waiting with me.
Wow, yes poetry offers language and imagery that makes a swift sudden drop into the heart and into the gut. It often leaves me with feelings and no words, wisdom and no explanations. There is a “this is simply so-ness” about poetry. Thanks dear friend for lifting up Donald Hall, this particular poem, and aging/loss.
“Swift sudden drop into the heart and into the gut” — ah, poetry. Preach it, sister.
Thanks for commenting to the post, and for gifting me with the poetry of David Whyte over the decades. xoxo