Love In The Open Hand

A few months ago, when I mentioned this sonnet (see "Kiss Me," March 1, 2010) I knew that it deserved another, longer look. Millay is undoubtedly one of the the most-mentioned writers in my literary discussions, and always one of my top choices for desert island reading. I know you're supposed to say The Bible or Shakespeare, but I think I'd be more inclined to pack the sonnets of Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Sonnet XI
Not in a silver casket cool with pearls
Or rich with red corundum or with blue,
Locked, and the key withheld, as other girls
Have given their loves, I give my love to you;
Not in a lovers'-knot, not in a ring
Worked in such fashion, and the legend plain—
Semper fidelis, where a secret spring
Kennels a drop of mischief for the brain:



"Down in
the meadow
where the
cowslips grow"

by Kate Greenaway
(1846 - 1901)
English children's
book illustrator




Love in the open hand, no thing but that,
Ungemmed, unhidden, wishing not to hurt,
As one should bring you cowslips in a hat
Swung from the hand, or apples in her skirt,
I bring you, calling out as children do:
"Look what I have!—And these are all for you."
~from the sonnet sequence Fatal Interview
What I admire about "Sonnet XI" is its innocence and optimism. It's a poem to read when you fear that what you have to offer, the things that you hold out are not being accepted, not even when you say, "these are all for you." And what are those things? Not diamond rings so much as thoughts, ideas, values, dreams, favorite poems, past experiences, rice in a jar, cowslips in a hat -- all the things that add to up to your own particular way of being in the world. How sad, the thought of offering honest companionship and getting the message, "Oh, no, you should be a different way than what you are."

This sonnet says that you deserve someone who offers you "Love in the open hand / nothing but that." However lovely the gifts and delightful the tokens, they should always be offered freely out of tenderness and a desire for your company -- just the way you are -- never as a way to control or "improve." And better yet, when you offer your affection and your deepest hopes and dreams, "ungemmed, unhidden, wishing not to hurt," they should be accepted freely -- not scrutinized or analyzed or held against the light or laughed at or brushed aside or put on hold.

Take care of your heart.

For more poems on this theme see today's post
on THE FORTNIGHTLY KITTI CARRIKER
my fortnightly literary blog
of connection and coincidence
www.kitticarriker.blogspot.com

The Spirit Grieves

Still Hanging On,
Right Outside My Window: One Last Rose

Summer, come back!

My friend Etta is right. Not everyone, she reminded me, is happy to see the summer go or thrilled at the onset of a chill bleak autumn. Not everyone "favors fall," with winter oh so soon to follow. Maybe you saw her comment:

"I must go on the record as someone who finds Fall gloomy, raining and full of mourning that Summer is gone. And worst of all, I am cold all the time, more even than in Winter. I believe though that it is a function of living further north than when growing up. I used to love Fall because most days were beautiful. Now Fall is just a harbinger of Winter."

Edna St. Vincent Millay, in her sonnet sequence entitled Fatal Interview, conveys this sense of autumnal loss, waste, and sorrow better than any poet I know. She is mournful but resigned. In Sonnet XLVI, she writes that the first frost will come. It may be unwelcome, it may be against our wishes, but it will come:

And that I knew, though not the day and hour.
Too season-wise am I, being country-bred,
To tilt at autumn or defy the frost:
Snuffing the chill even as my fathers did,
I say with them, "What's out tonight is lost."
I only hoped, with the mild hope of all
Who watch the leaf take shape upon the tree,
A fairer summer and a later fall
Than in these parts a man is apt to see.

"A fairer summer, and a later fall" -- is that so much to ask? Sometimes, yes. In Sonnet XXXV, Millay describes the sad results of the inevitable first frost. All you have to do is look out your window and there it is:

Clearly my ruined garden as it stood
Before the frost came on it I recall —
Stiff marigolds, and what a trunk of wood
The zinnia had, that was the first to fall;
These pale and oozy stalks, these hanging leaves
Nerveless and darkened, dripping in the sun,
Cannot gainsay me, though the spirit grieves
And wrings its hands at what the frost has done.

Sonnets by Edna St. Vincent Millay ~ see more
American Poet (1892 – 1950)
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1923

P.S. Halloween 2019
First Frost Tonight ~ Green Tomato Harvest!
As Robert Frost says: "But a crop is a crop.
And who's to say where the harvest shall stop?"

The Next Morning ~ All Saints Day

"What's out last night was lost."