Dirge Without Music

Some of you know that I was with Y. on Friday night when he suffered a massive brain bleed and died. It is why I have been so quiet the past few days.


I have been writing down notes everywhere since Y. died. At some point, I will be able to make sense of things. There is something profoundly sacred in what happened, and right now, I am riding the waves of the universe, allowing myself to float. Eventually, there will be a spilling of ink. My sense is that once I begin to write about all of this, there will be no stopping.

This is the poem I'm clinging to today.

Dirge without Music
Edna St. Vincent Millay

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.

The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

Thank you to all the people who have reached out to me these past few days. I am grateful. But right now, I am feeling quiet. And I know that I am loved.