Consolatio

François Villon: We were two with only one heart

Death, I call for help against your harshness.
You stole away my lover,
and are not sated yet.
You are keeping me listless,

till I have no more strength or vigor;
But how did she harm you while she was alive,
Death?

We were two with only one heart;
if it's dead, it will have to turn,
or else I must live without life
like images, by heart,
Death!

        --François Villon (ca 1431-ca 1463)

Mort, j'appelle de ta rigueur,
qui m'as ma maistresse ravie,
et n'es pas encore assouvie
se tu ne me tiens en langueur:

onc puis n'eus force ne vigueur;
mais que te nuysoit-elle en vie,
Mort?

Deux estions et n'avions qu'ung cuer;
s'il est mort, force est que devie,
Voire, ou que je vive sans vie
comme les images, par coeur,
Mort!

Thomas à Kempis: Come to me when it is not well with thee.

Son, I am the Lord, who gives strength in the time of tribulation.* Come to me when it is not well with thee.

Stand firmly, and be of good courage: comfort will come to thee in its proper season. Wait for me, wait, I will come and cure thee. **

Let not therefore thy heart be troubled... believe in me,*** and trust in my mercy. When thou thinkest I am far from thee, I am often nearest to thee....All is not lost, when anything falls out otherwise than thou wouldst have it. Thou must not judge according to thy present feeling....

    --Thomas à Kempis (1379-1471 ), in The Imitation of Christ , translated (1502) by William Atkinson and Margaret Beaufort?]

* John, xiv.27, 29
** Matt, viii, 7
***John, xiv, 27, 29

A letter from my mother

Tonight, just now, I picked up the book of quotes you gave to Daddy one Christmas, I believe. It is one of the things he left prominently out on his dresser in his last days and weeks, and I often read through it. I found the quote from My Antonia which I believe is the one you tried to remember today when we talked (such a good visit!). Here it is.

"This was the road over which Antonia and I came on the night when we got off the train at Black Hawk and were bedded down in the straw, wandering children, being taken we knew not whither. I had only to close my eyes to hear the rumblings of the wagons in the dark, and to be again overcome by that obliterating strangeness. The feelings of that night were so near that I could reach out and touch them with my hand....For Antonia and me, this had been the Road of Destiny; had taken us to those early accidents of fortune which predetermined for us all that we can ever be. Now I understood that the same road was to bring us together again. Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past."

        --My Antonia, by Willa Cather

Maybe it was the last line you were thinking of?

Yesterday morning I got up late (0900) and was taking my time getting dressed, when I decided to go through a pile of things Daddy left on his dresser and which I have not been able to steel myself to go through. Out fell a small (no more than 1-1/2" by 2-1/3"), browned, fragile, newspaper clipping which fluttered to the floor. I had never seen it. It was a poem, by Frederick Lawrence Knowles.

    It takes two for a kiss,
    Only one for a sigh;
    Twain by twain we marry,
    One by one we die.

    Joy is a partnership,
    Grief weeps alone;
    Many guests had Cana,
    Gethsemane had one.

Off to the side was written in his inimitable, beautiful hand, "I sigh for you."

[From Sedulia: My father must have left that out on purpose, knowing that my mother would find it after his death. I bet he never thought it would be more than seven years later that she had the strength to look through his things on top of the dresser ,in her own room.]

All day I had intervals of feeling weepy. I read it again this morning before church, and when I heard that beautiful male voice singing behind me, sounding so much like Daddy's, I had to fight for composure.

The thing about grief is that just when you congratulate yourself that you've got it under control, it blindsides you, takes you by complete surprise and thumbing its nose in your direction, leaves you to rebuild your post-grief self all over again. It does get easier, but how many more times?

Irish proverb: The will of God is nearer than the door.

The will of God is nearer than the door.

Is gaire cabhair Dé ná an doras.

        --Irish proverb

Anno Birkin: I'll see you in sleep, where I'm perfect

Steal me.
Melt my gold centre.
I enter through your dreams,
    where you're weak,
and where I'm clean of inhibitions.

I'm killing this body, this prison of flesh,
this heart and this head that you loved-- put to rest,
but I'll see you in sleep,
where I'm perfect.

        --Anno Birkin (1981-2001), a young man who died age 20. Even though he died in an auto accident, his poems read as though he knew he would die young. Or do all young people write like that?

Christine de Pisan: Singing cheerfully with a sad heart

To sing happily with a sad heart
and to laugh while in mourning is hard to do,
to show the opposite of one's thoughts,
 sweet laughter does not come from painful feeling,

that is what I usually have to do,
and to finish, I find I must
sing happily with a sad heart.

For in my heart I carry in secret
the grief of all griefs the hardest to bear
and to silence people I have to
laugh while weeping, and very bitterly
sing cheerfully with a sad heart.

    --Christine de Pisan (1363-1431) 

Christine de Pisan was the first woman in France to earn her living by writing. She lost her Italian father, who was the court astrologer, and her beloved husband by the time she was 25 years old, leaving her alone with three children to support.

Rondeau

De triste coeur chanter joyeusement
Et rire en deuil c'est chose fort à faire,
De son penser monstrer tout le contraire,
N'yssir doulz ris de doulent sentiment,

Ainsi me fault faire communement,
Et me convient, pour celer mon affaire,
De triste cuer chanter joyeusement.

Car en mon cuer porte couvertement
Le dueil qui soit qui plus me puet desplaire,
Et si me fault, pour les gens faire taire,
Rire en plorant et très amerement
De triste cuer chanter joyeusement.

Catala: Your last Christmas tree

Not only famous poets write moving poems. This is a poem recently published on a French website, "The Passion of Poems." M-thé Catala's husband died on January 1st, 2004.

Your Last Christmas Tree

Why buy our tree so early?
Christmas is not for a month, not tomorrow
Why did you want to go to all the stores
You were in such a hurry you pulled me by the hand

I didn't really understand
but your body had felt it already
You brought the decorations down from the attic
You had put them all over the house

I had never seen you like that
Taking big bites of life, arms full of gifts
for our children and grandchildren
You rushed as if you had no time

In the windows, magnificent snowy landscapes
A Father Christmas perched on the roof
A wreath on the door that said Welcome
People admiring as they passed in the street

How proud and surprised I was by your energy
You who had been in pain for years
How was it I didn't realize sooner
that for you the days were counted

You had set up the tree near the chimney
the ornaments hung, the garlands blinking
We were before this tree, our eyes shining,
Wide-eyed, I was marveling

Then it was the drama, that telephone call
saying to leave right away for the clinic
Doctors alarmed, generalized cancer
You would not make it to the end of the year

We looked at that tree together
Your eyes seemed to tell it "Farewell," not "Tomorrow"
I spent a month by you at the hospice
Your body wearing out, your fearful look

You departed gently on New Year's Day
Since then I have lost my childish gaze
I went back to the house after the burial
Standing before the tree, my heart in Nothingness

I unhooked the decorations one by one
with trembling hands, no one at home,
I put all the ornaments into the wicker trunk
The strands of lights
seemed to weep as I did

One last time for you I made them blink
Outside it was night, your star was flickering
Never again a festival meal,
nor tree, nor decorations
Winter had just crossed through my heart and my body

YOU HAVE PASSED TO ANOTHER SETTING

            --mtcatala  on LaPassiondesPoèmes.com

TON DERNIER SAPIN

Pourquoi acheter si vite notre sapin
Noel est dans un mois, ce n’est pas demain
Pourquoi voulais-tu faire tous les magasins
Tu étais si pressé tu me tirais la main

Je n’avais vraiment pas compris
Mais ton corps lui l’avait ressenti
Tu avais descendu du grenier les décorations
Tu en avais mis déjà plein la maison

Je ne t’avais jamais vu comme ça
Mordant la vie, des cadeaux plein les bras
Pour nos enfants et nos petits enfants
Tu courais comme si tu n’avais pas le temps

Aux fenêtres des magnifiques paysages enneigés
Un père Noel qui semblait sur le toit s’accrocher
Une couronne sur la porte souhaitant la bienvenue
Les personnes émerveillées en passant dans la rue

Comme j’étais fière et surprise de ton élan
Toi qui depuis quelques années était souffrant
Comment n’y avais-je pas plus vite penser
Que pour toi les jours étaient comptés

Tu avais dressé le sapin près de la cheminée
Les sujets accrochés ,les guirlandes clignotaient
Nous étions devant ce sapin nos yeux scintillaient
Les yeux écarquillés, j’étais émerveillée

Puis ce fut le drame, cette appel téléphonique
Demandant de repartir d’urgence en clinique
Médecins alarmés, cancer généralisé
Tu ne passerais pas la fin de l’année

Nous avons regardé tous les deux le sapin
Tes yeux semblaient lui dire adieu pas à demain
J’ai passé près de toi un mois en soins palliatifs
Ton corps se dégradait, et ton regard craintif

Tu es parti doucement le jour de l’an
J’ai perdu depuis mon regard d’enfant
Je suis revenue à la maison après l’enterrement
Debout devant le sapin , mon cœur dans le néant

J’ai décroché une à une les décorations
Les mains tremblantes, personne à la maison
J’ai rangé tout les sujets dans la malle en osier
Les guirlandes allumées semblaient comme moi pleurer

Une dernière fois pour toi je les fis clignoter
Dehors c’était la nuit ,ton étoile scintillait
Plus jamais de repas de fêtes, ni de sapin, ni de décors
L’hiver venait de traverser mon cœur et mon corps

TU ES PARTI VERS UN AUTRE DECOR

Johann Gaudenz von Salis-Seewis: No evening on earth can bring us all together again

Evening Sadness

Over the fir trees gleamed the lamp of the evening star;
gently the sunset glow died down
and the quaking aspens by the quiet pond
were rustling softly.

Ghostly images rose from the twilight of my memory;
dimly the forms floated over me
of my far-off loved ones
and of those who are dead.

Sacred shadows! oh, no evening on earth
can bring us all together again! I sighed alone.
The evening star had sunk; the quaking aspens by the pond
were rustling sadness.

        --Johann Gaudenz von Salis-Seewis (1762-1834)

Abendwehmut

Über den Kiefern blinkte Hespers Lampe;
sanft verglommen der Abendröte Gluten
und die Zitterespen am stillen Weiher
säuselten leise.

Geistige Bilder stiegen aus dem Zwielicht
der Erinnerung; mich umschwebten trübe
die Gestalten meiner entfernten Lieben
und der gestorbnen.

Heilige Schatten! ach, kein Erdenabend
kann uns alle vereinen! seufzt' ich einsam.
Hesper war gesunken; des Weihers Espen
säuselten Wehmut.

Johann Gaudenz von Salis-Seewis: Only through the dark gate does one go home

The grave is deep and silent,
and its brim is frightening;
it covers with a black pall
an unknown land.

The song of the nightingale
does not sound in its halls;
the roses of friendship fall now
on the moss of the grave-mound.

Abandoned brides wring
their hands sore, in vain;
the orphan's wail does not penetrate
the deep ground.

But it is nowhere else
that the longed-for peace dwells;
only through the dark gate
does one go home.

The poor heart, here on earth
moved by many storms,
reaches true peace
only when it beats no more.

        --Johann Gaudenz von Salis-Seewis (1762-1834)

Das Grab ist tief und stille,
Und schauderhaft sein Rand;
Es deckt mit schwarzer Hülle
Ein unbekanntes Land.

Das Lied der Nachtigallen
Tönt nicht in seinem Schoß;
Der Freundschaft Rosen fallen
Nur auf des Hügels Moos.

Verlaßne Bräute ringen
Umsonst die Hände wund;
Der Waise Klage dringen
Nicht in der Tiefe Grund.

Doch, sonst an keinem Orte
Wohnt die ersehnte Ruh';
Nur durch die dunkle Pforte
Geht man der Heimat zu.

Das arme Herz, hienieden
Von manchem Sturm bewegt,
Erlangt den wahren Frieden
Nur, wo es nicht mehr schlägt.