“you wanted to be free / somewhere past the bitter end is where i want to be”

[larryhammer]

For Poetry Monday:

“Time does not bring relief; you all have lied,” Edna St. V. Millay

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.


It’s been a while since I ran Millay. She did good love sonnets. And good other sonnets. But especially love sonnets.

---L.

Subject quote from Useless Desires, Patty Griffin.