Sun And Moon Poem by Jane Kenyon

Sun And Moon

Rating: 4.5


For Donald Clark


Drugged and drowsy but not asleep
I heard my blind roommate's daughter
helping her with her meal:
“What's that? Squash?”
“No. It's spinach.”


Back from a brain-scan, she dozed
to the sound of the Soaps: adultery,
amnesia, shady business deals,
and long, white hospital halls....
No separation between life and art.


I heard two nurses whispering:
Mr. Malcomson had died.
An hour later one of them came to say
that a private room was free.


A chill spring breeze
perturbed the plastic drape.
I lay back on the new bed,
and had a vision of souls
stacked up like pelts
under my soul, which was ill—
so heavy with grief
it kept the others from rising.


No varicolored tubes
serpentined beneath the covers;
I had the vital signs of a healthy,
early-middle-aged woman.
There was nothing to cut or dress,
remove or replace.


A week of stupor. Sun and moon
rose and set over the small enclosed
court, the trees....
The doctor’s face appeared
and disappeared
over the foot of the bed. By slow degrees
the outlandish sadness waned.


Restored to my living room
I looked at the tables, chairs, and pictures
with something like delight,
only pale, faint—as from a great height.
I let the phone ring; the mail
accrued unopened
on the table in the hall.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Susan Williams 15 December 2015

I notice she was middle-aged when she passed away. This poem makes me feel that it was a disease that brought her down inch by inch day by day because there is too much of truth in this poem to be mere observation of others.

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