GONE TO FEED THE ROSES

Yeah, well, I am not long for this awake world, as I took some sleeping medication (never did find the Ambien  — maybe tomorrow). I need to get to sleep, sleep through the night, and then get out of bed at a more reasonable hour (closer to 6:30 or 7:00 instead of 8:30).

I was relatively productive, not as prone to (appropriate) crying. I feel dull and unthinking, but that is likely a stage of shock, too. I just hope I can keep the dementors of death and reality away as I am falling asleep.

S heard this poem on some NPR show and I thought it was pretty good, so here you go:

Dirge Without Music

BY 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 and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—

They are gone.  They are 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.