Last week I was honored by my friend Jean Yeatman when she asked me to sit with her at her mother’s deathbed. We talked about childhood excursions that our families took together and also about the importance of ritual in our lives. Today’s William Blake poem is for her and her brother Clay. Blake finds […]
Tag Archives: death and dying
He Doth Sit By Us and Moan
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "On Another's Sorrow", grieving, mourning, William Blake | Comments closed
Please Go Gentle into That Good Night
Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle” can be read as a narcissistic desire by young people that their elders will go out on young people’s terms.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night", Christopher Marlowe, Death of Ivan Ilych, Doctor Faustus, Dylan Thomas, Leo Tolstoy | Comments closed
Dying and a Night Powdered with Stars
Oliver Sacks, as he is dying, shares Milton’s wonder at a night sky “powdered with stars.”
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged astronomy, John Milton, Oliver Sacks, Paradise Lost | Comments closed
Soldier, Rest, Thy Warfare O’er
In “Soldier Rest,” Sir Walter Scott captures how inviting death can look to those caught up in battle’s throes.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Strange Meeting", Lady of the Lake, Memorial Day, Sir Walter Scott, war, Wilfred Owen | Comments closed
Mourning Lincoln, Mourning My Son
Whitman’s mourning of Lincoln in “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” also captures what it feels like to lose a child.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", death of a child, elegies, mourning, Walt Whitman | Comments closed
A Fatal Diagnosis, an Almost Ghost
A good friend has just been diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer, putting me in mind of a poem by Lucille Clifton when she learned of her husband’s lung cancer diagnosis.
Whitman’s Poem a Lesson for War Hawks
In “The Wound-Binder,” Walt Whitman refuses to glorify war and only shows its bloody aftermath–a good thing to remember on the 150th anniversary of the Civil War’s final day.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Dulce et Decorum Est", "Wound-Binder", Civil War, Walt Whitman, war fever, Wilfred Owen | Comments closed
Hoping against Hope in the Face of Death
Following philosopher Adrienne Martin, I meditate on what it means to “hope against hope” or to have “unimaginable hope.” The texts I use are “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” “Beowulf,” and “Wizard of Earthsea.”
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Afghanistan, Beowulf, hope, Military, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Ursula K Le Guin, Wizard of Earthsea | Comments closed
San Luis Rey, a Bridge of Love
Wilder’s “Bridge of San Luis Rey” is a powerful book for those who have lost friends.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Bridge of San Luis Rey, Grief, Thornton Wilder | Comments closed
