Read Online You Drive Me Crazy by Mary D. Esselman, Elizabeth Ash Vélez - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mary D. Esselman, Elizabeth Ash Vélez
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shoulders.” He is amazed to find the spider “Free of the dust, as though a moment before/She had stepped inside the earth, to bathe herself.” And then the speaker experiences a flash of insight—this is the way to move forward in love and in life. Don't let yourself get buried in the remains of your past; instead, let your old experiences baptize you into a new beginning. Try to emerge into “the heart of the light” of the present. “The secret of this journey,” he tells us, is “to step lightly, lightly/All the way through your ruins, and not to lose/Any sleep over the dead, who surely/Will bury their own, don't worry.”
It sounds harsh perhaps, letting go so completely of those in the past, but it's not as if we pretend the relationship never happened. You learned and changed and grew in your old relationship—those experiences will always be with you, shaping who you will become. The speaker in Jane Hirshfield's “Three Times My Life Has Opened” explains it this way: “There is a door. It opens. Then it is closed. But a slip of light/stays, like a scrap of unreadable paper left on the floor.” That slip of light, like the heart of the light in Wright's poem, can help guide you toward love again.
And being diehard romantics despite our efforts to appear jaded and cynical, we hope that clarity does find you back in love or on your way there again. We hope you share the contentment of the speaker in Amy Lowell's “Decade,” who, ten years into her relationship, feels that her mate leaves her “completely nourished.”
Actually, we hope for even more than that. Yes, it's very nice if your partner is like your “morning bread,” “smooth and pleasant.” It's very “Stability,” and stability is a fine place to be in love. But hey, come on, if he used to burn your mouth with his sweetness, if he used to taste like “red wine and honey,” well, wouldn't it be great to be nourished
and
to have all that rich flavor bursting back?
Wouldn't it be even more wonderful to have that contented nourishment
and
the naughty, teasing, hungry deliciousness described in William Carlos Williams's “This Is Just to Say”? The speaker in that poem willy-nilly dares to eat his lover's luscious plums, even though he knows she is saving them for something practical, like breakfast. He doesn't care. He can't help himself. He wants those sweet, cold plums! (which, in case you can't tell, we think symbolize his lover's sexuality). And he knows she'll be charmed by his funny, careless “this is just to say” approach. This is the kind of mate we want after a decade (or longer, or less) of long-term commitment—someone who knows and cares for us intimately but not solemnly, someone who still remembers how to be playfully provocative.
Yes, we're venturing back into ecstasy territory; we know it. Like the speaker in the Williams poem, we just can't help it. We want everyone to be happy in love, despite all its ups and downs or maybe even because of them. Real love can whirl you from the glory of ecstasy into the hell of misery and back again, but that's just how it goes in real life, and aren't we lucky to be part of that dance?
So as you emerge from clarity, no matter where your heart is headed next, be grateful for the chance to love. As Wallace Stevens seems to be saying in his poem “Life Is Motion,” love gives life momentum, helps us move forward, and allows us to be both flesh and air—to be physically grounded on earth but emotionally lifted to the heavens. So get crazy in love. Let yourself swing around like Bonnie and Josie in Stevens's poem, crying, “‘Ohoyaho,/Ohoo’…/ Celebrating the marriage/Of flesh and air.”
Mary Bly
I sit here, doing nothing, alone, worn out by long winter.
I feel the light breath of the newborn child.
Her face is smooth as the side of an apricot,
Eyes quick as her blond mother's hands.
She has full, soft, red hair, and as she lies quiet
In her tall mother's arms,
It sounds harsh perhaps, letting go so completely of those in the past, but it's not as if we pretend the relationship never happened. You learned and changed and grew in your old relationship—those experiences will always be with you, shaping who you will become. The speaker in Jane Hirshfield's “Three Times My Life Has Opened” explains it this way: “There is a door. It opens. Then it is closed. But a slip of light/stays, like a scrap of unreadable paper left on the floor.” That slip of light, like the heart of the light in Wright's poem, can help guide you toward love again.
And being diehard romantics despite our efforts to appear jaded and cynical, we hope that clarity does find you back in love or on your way there again. We hope you share the contentment of the speaker in Amy Lowell's “Decade,” who, ten years into her relationship, feels that her mate leaves her “completely nourished.”
Actually, we hope for even more than that. Yes, it's very nice if your partner is like your “morning bread,” “smooth and pleasant.” It's very “Stability,” and stability is a fine place to be in love. But hey, come on, if he used to burn your mouth with his sweetness, if he used to taste like “red wine and honey,” well, wouldn't it be great to be nourished
and
to have all that rich flavor bursting back?
Wouldn't it be even more wonderful to have that contented nourishment
and
the naughty, teasing, hungry deliciousness described in William Carlos Williams's “This Is Just to Say”? The speaker in that poem willy-nilly dares to eat his lover's luscious plums, even though he knows she is saving them for something practical, like breakfast. He doesn't care. He can't help himself. He wants those sweet, cold plums! (which, in case you can't tell, we think symbolize his lover's sexuality). And he knows she'll be charmed by his funny, careless “this is just to say” approach. This is the kind of mate we want after a decade (or longer, or less) of long-term commitment—someone who knows and cares for us intimately but not solemnly, someone who still remembers how to be playfully provocative.
Yes, we're venturing back into ecstasy territory; we know it. Like the speaker in the Williams poem, we just can't help it. We want everyone to be happy in love, despite all its ups and downs or maybe even because of them. Real love can whirl you from the glory of ecstasy into the hell of misery and back again, but that's just how it goes in real life, and aren't we lucky to be part of that dance?
So as you emerge from clarity, no matter where your heart is headed next, be grateful for the chance to love. As Wallace Stevens seems to be saying in his poem “Life Is Motion,” love gives life momentum, helps us move forward, and allows us to be both flesh and air—to be physically grounded on earth but emotionally lifted to the heavens. So get crazy in love. Let yourself swing around like Bonnie and Josie in Stevens's poem, crying, “‘Ohoyaho,/Ohoo’…/ Celebrating the marriage/Of flesh and air.”
Mary Bly
I sit here, doing nothing, alone, worn out by long winter.
I feel the light breath of the newborn child.
Her face is smooth as the side of an apricot,
Eyes quick as her blond mother's hands.
She has full, soft, red hair, and as she lies quiet
In her tall mother's arms,
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