.
I, too, found myself reading over and over again the first four lines, trying to dissect their meaning, instinctively knowing that understanding them was essential to understanding the slant and heave of the whole.
Yes, as David highlights, there is a chorus of sadness that sings throughout. There is something of a eulogy emanating from it. I keep trying to disperse the renegade thought that this is about your sister, and that she did indeed join the dead of her own free will, but the rest of the poem tells me to resist that thought. It tells me that the poem is about Virginia, Sylvia, Anne, Charlotte and you. But who is Charlotte? Is this poem saying that the sisterhood of poets who took their own lives now have your sister to sing to and with?
Here are some thoughts that came to me as I read:
- The punctuation harnesses the poem. It ends as it begins: halting, full stops at the end of each line. Rick's analysis of the poem's abrupt shifts, i.e. the opening quatrain vs. the middle eight, vs. the closing couplet, is exactly the feeling I get from it. I like it, but Rick's point/suggestion may be a good one. I don't know.
- These lines hit like a hammer:
..........It was the only tune. I had no choice.
..........It wasn’t pretty, rooted in a moan.
- These lines reveal something universal:
..........as if they also grew
..........my sound.
- This is the sound/line that is loudest to me:
..........final thoughts revolving in regret[LIST]
- This arrested me: the net. I thought maybe it was referring to the internet and that Charlotte might be your sister... But then I noticed that there was no comma and continues into the next line with, "to guide them to the shore, with death in hand." ( I wonder if you need the comma after shore?) The net now becomes a traditional fishing net.
- The final couplet is an abrupt change from the preceding eight lines and compels me to think this is a eulogy for your sister. I could be dead wrong about that but it feels right to me.
As you say, this is not a pretty poem. More a moan. But it is a song.
.