Wednesday, April 12
UNACCOMPANIED ANTHEM We live as we dream ... alone. —Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness” I was not born to this wariness. I came of age as my kind do—armed with ache and swathed in rectitude, a rough carving sluiced under a torrent of disregard. Still, I did not suffer unduly. Most often I bore witness: I listened, then took it back into a solitude neither light nor rain could reach. There I would sit and rock myself warm. I tell you this long past the learning of it. I ate quickly, dreamt little, read like a fiend— not quite a shadow, more than a smudge; you begrudged me even these tremulous pleasures. I came to you grinning with grief, but if called upon would not pause to lift up a fist— the only one in the room who raises her hand when no one else speaks, though the answer is obvious. (Rita Dove)