3.2.03 She has sailed away
My
husband's mother died yesterday. She was nearly 98. By the time I met
her, maybe 25 years ago, she was a Southampton matriarch. Her fussiness
about how many kinds of toast to serve with breakfast made it hard to
know the real person.
I only got to know her after she got Alzheimers and we started
sorting through her papers.
She was a political activist and world traveler, but the Olive I love
best is the young woman barely in her twenties, full of longings and
full of discoveries. She was in love with the man who would be her
husband for 70 years. He saved her from the poverty and provincialism of
her family, but also introduced his own family's brand of tight-lipped
discipline. She wanted to be wild. She saw beauty in emotions. But all
around her were the lessons in how she was supposed to be good.
She wrote this poem during those years. It's as fine a eulogy as
anyone could write.
There will come a dawning
Where the sun is dazzling gold
When those who would restrain me
Will have to loose their hold.
Then I shall buckle tight my sandals
On impatient, eager feet,
And dance off -- bound off -- shouting
To the world that lies far off.
Then I shall reach a wide wide sea
And find a boatlet there
In a green and silver baylet
Where I'd left it till such time
As those who would restrain me
Had to let go their clutching hold.
Then I shall push far, far out
And stand -- my arms outspread
Reaching, touching, straining
For the things in me not dead
And I'll sail and dream and dream until
My arms have tired of seeking
And my sandals are all worn.
Then I'll come back, come back gladly
To be held again by those
Who would give me what now I want,
Desire in me dead.
And I shall want restraint
And quietness and peace --
Peace about me while I sleep.
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