My Empty Home, A Sonnet Options

[jgdittier]

How silent be my home since angels came!
How empty be this house though I am here.
But yet it's occupied, I must proclaim,
In ev'ry niche and corner is my dear.
I see her shadow when I glaze my eyes,
I hear her sighs when silence rules the house.
And oft', without a hope I scan the skies
And hear the raindrops 'twere they tears from spouse.
Perhaps my lack of Heaven's faith o'ercome
And death is simply same as prior to birth;
But now to pass that gate when I succumb,
To join with her's a blessing worth the earth.
For fifty years she filled my empty cup.
My demons deem, demand, I not look up!

(lines 9-10 divulge the fact that I've been skeptical re Heaven and now realize
just how much belief can comfort. The closing suggests the unanticipated pain that
I might have avoided.)

[Cleo_Serapis]

Hi Ron,

My sincere sympathies. This is a loving tribute written straight from the heart with such moving emotion. I like how you've woven the sadness of your wife's departure with the hope (and love) of her spirit still remaining with you and the change we find at the end in your outlook and faith.

May she always be with you and guide you.

With my condolences,
Lori

[jgdittier]

Dear Lori,
Your comments couldn't bring more solace.
The price I pay for 52 years of Joan could never be too high.
May I someday console you and may that day be far in the future.
Thank you, Lori.
Cheers, Ron

[Guest_ohsteve_*]

Ron, A wonderful tribute, so soon written, must have been very hard, brought tears to my eyes. My deepest sympathies.
Steve

[4rum]

I agree with the others, the content is compassionate in it's passion, but my joy in reading is the wonderful meter you have kept. This read so smoothly, very pleasing. Ninth line volta prominent and proper. Ending couplet could not be better! Kudos on a well written sonnet.

[Aphrodite]

Hi Ron,

How are you? It has been a long time.

This is such a sensitive and heartfelt tribute/poem and my genuine sympathy goes out to you. I found writing to be deeply cathartic, especially when I lost my Dad.

May memories of tender moments shared, help comfort you.

Blessings,
Lindi

[mike in brooklyn]

Dear Ron

your love and devotion are just oozing out of every line of the sonnet
my deepest condolence at your life changing loss

[Maggie]

Hi Ron,

This is a very sad yet somehow very beautiful poem! My heart-felt sympathy goes out to you. I'm reminded by your sad event of what Queen Elizabeth wrote about 9/11. She wrote that "Grief is the price we pay for love." I believe whole-heartedly that she was right, for at some point in time there must be the moment of parting-parting at least in this mortal world. I believe that you and I share a common belief of life everlasting in the next world and a being together forever. May that comfort you, dear bard.

Perhaps, as time passes, you may want to read a few of my favorite death poems:

(1) Tennyson's " Crossing the Bar"
(2) William Cullen Bryant's "Thanatopsis" (last stanza)
(3) Helen Waddell's "The Mournes" (Is a love poem and death poem too)
(4) Funeral Poem in translation read at Jackie Kennedy's funeral (I posted this one here on the forums under "Famous Poets' Poems" or something like that


Fine poem!!!

Peggy

[jgdittier]

Dear Peggy,
I've now read "Thanatopsis" but couldn't find the others. Thank you for the lead to "T" and for your comments.
Cheers, Ron jgdittier

[Maggie]

Crossing the Bar
Alfred, Lord Tennyson

SUNSET and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep, 5
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark! 10
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face 15
When I have crossed the bar.

[Maggie]

The Mournes
Helen Waddell


I shall not go to heaven when I die.
But if they let me be
I think I'll take a road I used to know
That goes by Slieve-na-garagh and the sea.
And all day breasting me the wind will blow,
And I'll hear nothing but the peewit's cry
And the sea talking in the caves below.
I think it will be winter when I die
(For no one from the North could die in spring)
And all the heather will be dead and grey,
And the bog-cotton will have blown away,
And there will be no yellow on the wind.
But I shall smell the peat,
And when it's almost dark I'll set my feet
Where a white track goes glimmering to the hills,
And see, far up, a light
--Would you think Heaven could be so small a thing
As a lit window on the hills at night?--
And come in stumbling from the gloom,
Half-blind, into a firelit room.
Turn, and see you,
And there abide.
If it were true,
And if I thought that they would let me be,
I almost wish it were tonight I died."

[Maggie]

Ithaka
by C. P. Cavafy
translated by Edmunc Keeley and Phillip Sherrard


As you set out for Ithaka

hope the voyage is a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery.

Laistrygonians and Cyclops,

angry Poseidon -- don't be afraid of them:

you'll never find things like that on your way

as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,

as long as a rare excitement

stirs your spirit and your body.

Laistrygonians and Cyclops,

wild Poseidon -- you won't encounter them

unless you bring them along inside your soul,

unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.

May there be many a summer morning when,

with what pleasure, what joy,

you come into harbors seen for the first time;

may you stop at Phoenician trading stations

to buy fine things,

mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

sensual perfume of every kind --

as many sensual perfumes as you can,

and may you visit many Egyptian cities

to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithakacq always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you are destined for.

But do not hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

so you are old by the time you reach the island,

wealthy with all you have gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her, you would not have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,

you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

[jgdittier]

Dear Peggy,
I'm amazed you cared enought to print them. Halluluha!
Cheers, Ron

[jgdittier]

Dear Peggy,
I have always relished the thought of knowing (or suspecting) th thought processes of the poet I'm reading.
Your two choices stimulate my imagination. The first leaves my head ashake, the second in total disarray.
But Peggy, I never have understood the workings of the feminine mind.
Thank you for adding to my life!
Cheers, ron jgdittier

[Maggie]

Dear Ron,

I am humbled by your gratitude, and if I've added to your life I'm glad!!!! I feel that I've merely shared some of my own feelings and ideas with such an appreciative recepient. Death itself has been on my mind for about the last five years: So many loved ones have passed during that period, and as a result my own mortality has been emphasized and on my mind.

Keeping you close in thought.

Peggy

[Guest_Altay_*]

This is very powerful. Very moving and very touching. So obvious in what it's about, and so unabashed, raw and honest in it's expression. A wonderful example of poetry magnifying reality with imagry rather than hiding it with metaphors. Beautiful.