Friday
As I sit listening to the steady breathing of my dying mother, my mind searches around for poetry that can frame the moment and, through framing, offer consolation. My mother has had moments of panic and moments of confusion over the past couple of days, but mostly she has been adrift in a half world between waking and sleeping. The relatively little pain she has experienced has been addressed by morphine.
Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death” has never spoken to me as powerfully as it does right now. That’s because I imagine the speaker to be my mother, taking a leisurely trip to “Eternity.” Born in 1925 in upper Peoria society, my mother was very much a lady, and there is something ladylike about the carriage ride described in the poem. My mother always showed the kind of respect to other people that the speaker and coachman Death show each other.
I imagine my mother approaching what appears “a Swelling of the Ground” and suddenly realizing that it is not a house but the next stage. She is alone but not alone. For her, there is no rage against the dying of the light, no Faustian melodramatics, no boisterous boast “Death, thou shalt die.” Instead, there is a slight chill and some understated surprise.
All very civil. Like my mother.
Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.
We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility –
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring –
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –
We passed the Setting Sun –
Or rather – He passed Us –
The Dews drew quivering and Chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –
Since then – ’tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity –