UPON READING FANNY HOWE'S POEM "LONELINESS"


Part 1: The Winding Path Grows Narrow
By Pris Campbell

I dip my pen
into half-forgotten memories:
My father’s Silver Queen corn,
just picked, shucked and plopped
into the boiling pot.
Teeth chattering in marches
with the school band each Christmas.
Men pressing their lips to mine,
wanting more than once a night.

Hawaii and Boston stand out
during my years as a psychologist.
From pink sandals and magic
in the swaying palms and soft ukes
to snow pelted sidewalks, thick boots,
and my first experience in communal living,

And who could forget my six months
on a sailboat after Boston, traveling the East Coast,
new faces to carry with me at every anchor drop.

I wake and what was so vivid fades
My body sags with age and illness
into once treasured moments short-circuited
into a homebound life. Unable to read,
watch more than a short movie on tv—
mornings only, or I don’t sleep
and miss my trip on the memory train.
I can’t lose myself in a walk along
the beach— my legs haven’t worked
for a year now—or enjoy a long conversation.
If I try, I fold into myself, lost in dizziness.
Loneliness wraps me in its dark robes
and holds me in a death grip.
How shall I fill my day?

In the life I once thought would continue,
I should by now have written
the Great American Novel,
camped where black bears wait,
hidden, for any leftovers from dinner,
sailed around the world
or biked cross country with friends.

Where did it all go?

Venus appears in the sky
this black morning, it’s light
brighter than any planet
I’ve ever seen.
It, too, is alone in that voided sky,
but oh, how it shines!
Its light is absorbed into my bones.

I’ll send my dreams up to meet it tonight.
We’ll join forces in the brilliant emptiness of space.

Part 2: An Exegesis on Loneliness
By Michael Parker

I sat in the well-preserved armchair
except for the arms shredded by time,
no thanks to the claws from the cats
I will not soon forget.
The poem opened like a wound
that doesn’t ache yet,
only stares back at you
with a kind of light
you might expect from
this summer sun, though
you are dressed
for winter in the wide spaces
of the air-conditioned house.

She wrote about being alone
the way an eighteen-month-old
discovers the lines and
imperfections on your face
to get to know you
or how the blind must touch
the faces of their lovers
to see them clearly.
I am not speaking of sadness—no.
Not even despair,

though it walks through the stanzas
like the gauzy shadows of eventide,
like the ghosts of our loved ones
who suddenly appear to us
in our treasured dreams,
or like its wearing soft shoes
that barely leave a footprint
on the lush carpet
of your house.

I think she was telling the truth
about something we care for
like one of our own infants
we raise to the heavens
before God and His angels
to give it a name.
Or, how being alone is not
the worst thing
like a monsoon's deluge.
Not even close.

What pierced me to the core
was not the solitude
or isolation,
but its careful definitude,
as if she knew like the veins
on the back of her hands
how a room can transform into
the map of its own country.
How the songlike silence,
when left alone long enough,
will begin to speak
in our own voice.

I folded the book of weeping,
melancholic songs and psalms
slowly,
like tucking a child into bed
who has already fallen asleep
in my comforting arms.
Outside, the streets are dark
and waiting for nothing
except for possibly
the closing coda
of the symphony of cicadas
that welcomes night,

her stars, and bright-faced moon.
Inside the walls
of the reassuring house,
as I prepare the rooms
to sleep, I stand
in the shadows
and begin to ponder
what it means
to be touched
without being held.

This is the kind of coat
she has dressed her subject.
This is the flesh
of her round mouth
she has pressed upon ours
to wish us goodnight,
or to reassure us of her love,
or more soberly, to revive us,
bring us back
from the bleak
and depressing path
of our precipitous
passing.