[annie nance]

Awww Frank, you're so hard on the poor girl! I think you could take all kinds of religious and spiritual meaning from this poem. This could very easily have been written by a converted Christian.

Nothing on earth to me was like this wind-blown space,
Nothing was like the road, but at the end there was a vision or a face
And the eyes were not always kind.

Death as something to fear, maybe even hell...

Smile, death, as you fasten the blades to my feet for me
(Show me your face, why the eyes are kind!)

... becomes something to embrace, a welcome release, like heaven.

And we will not speak of life or believe in it or remember it as we go.

No regrets, no looking back, because what is ahead is so much better, perhaps.

The wind-blown space could be a clean slate, a starting over, a second chance, total forgiveness- in other words, Grace.

I don't necessarily believe this interpretation is exactly what the author had in mind, just going by her history of suicide. But I think it's one valid interpretation and that this is a beautiful poem. One of the things that makes a poem great, to me, is its ability to speak to every reader, no matter how different they all may be.

annie

[Mary Meriam]

Thanks, Frank and Annie.

Sure, there may be no explicit reference to lesbianism in this poem. And that's an important way to read a poem - to take into account only what the words suggest. However, there are other ways to read poems. Poems often inspire me to look beyond the poem itself, into everything surrounding the creation of the poem, including the poet. Once I gather details about all this, I can't then separate the details from my reading. I see no reason to do so. All those details only make the reading a richer experience. I'm sure there must be terminology for what I'm describing - Derrida, deconstruction, New Criticism, blah blah blah. I haven't decided if all those terms are important to learn or just a bunch of jargon. My reading and interpretation of poems seems to be expanding into history, biography, and publication complications.

[Gail White]

I'm no great shakes as a critic, but I am a big admirer of Mew, and this poem was new to me, so many thanks for it!

I would love to know if this was by any chance the last poem she wrote. Mew ended her own life, and I would like to think that at the end the "eyes were kind."

[Jerry Glenn Hartwig]

The Farmer's Bride

Three Summers since I chose a maid,
Too young maybe - but more's to do
....At harvest-time than bide and woo.
....When us was wed she turned afraid
Of love and me and all things human;
Like the shut of a winter's day.
Her smile went out, and 'twasn't a woman--
....More like a little, frightened fay.
....One night, in the Fall, she runned away.

"Out 'mong the sheep, her be," they said,
'Should properly have been abed;
....But sure enough she wasn't there
....Lying awake with her wide brown stare.
So over seven-acre field and up-along across the down
We chased her, flying like a hare
Before our lanterns. To Church-Town
All in a shiver and a scare
....We caught her, fetched her home at last
....And turned the key upon her, fast.

She does the work about the house
As well as most, but like a mouse:
....Happy enough to chat and play
....With birds and rabbits and such as they,
So long as men-folk stay away.
"Not near, not near!" her eyes beseech
When one of us comes within reach.
The women say that beasts in stall
....Look round like children at her call.
....I've hardly heard her speak at all.

Shy as a leveret, swift as he,
Straight and slight as a young larch tree,
Sweet as the first wild violets, she,
To her wild self. But what to me?

The short days shorten and the oaks are brown,
The blue smoke rises to the low gray sky,
....One leaf in the still air falls slowly down,
....A magpie's spotted feathers lie
On the black earth spread white with rime,
The berries redden up to Christmas-time.
What's Christmas-time without there be
....Some other in the house than we!

She sleeps up in the attic there
Alone, poor maid. 'Tis but a stair
Betwixt us. Oh, my God! - the down,
The soft young down of her; the brown,
The brown of her - her eyes, her hair, her hair!

[Mary Meriam]

I'd love to know that too, Gail. If I find out, I'll let you know.

Jerry - thanks for posting this delicious poem - wow, I never read it before, and I love it.

I was amazed to read this line:

One leaf in the still air falls slowly down

It was one leaf I saw falling out my window that inspired me to write the leaf ghazal I had posted here recently, which turned into a poem about Mew.