Wednesday 29 September 2010

Elegy For My Hypothetical Death

One had the impression
That she thought she was headed somewhere
Knew roughly the route
To take, to further hasten her pursuit,
But somewhere had forgotten
Quite where to alight,
Or deliberately shut her eyes,
Or made just one too many a digression.
In any case, she never did arrive.

It’s probably for the best.
Mercifully no one ever tapped her shoulder
And said, “Excuse me, but I think I’ve rather guessed
You’re on this track by accident,
Pretending that you know
Where it goes?”
Her intentions, I hope you are aware
Could not be faulted.
And yet the will behind them wasn’t there.
One cannot really fail a quest to nowhere.

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Apologies for the extreme morbidity of this. I was reading 'How To Read A Poem' by Terry Eagleton yesterday afternoon, and he mentioned that W.B. Yeats wrote his own epitaph. Then I remembered Thomas Hardy's poem 'Afterwards', musing on how he might be remembered after death. And then I thought, 'Hey, I'll write an elegy for myself as though I were dead..." Cheery, I know. I didn't really focus on the death angle; I was thinking about how if I were to die now, it would be quite irritating as nearly everything worthwhile that I've done so far in my life has felt like a step towards some greater goal which, as you may have gathered, I haven't quite worked out the nature of yet. Needless to say, I'm not planning on dying any time soon, so it's all good!

3 comments:

  1. Cheery, indeed. xD
    I love your poetry, you have such a naturally flowing style. I like the journey metaphor that runs throughout, and the perspective you take to examine something so personal and so morbid. It's a very interesting idea that I might just have to try out some time! :) xxx

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  2. That's me! :) Thank you. I was really trying not to be too morbid - I guess I was attempting to sort of evaluate my life so far as opposed to being emo!
    You should! It'd be interesting xxx

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  3. It doesn't come across as being emo - more contemplative and detatched. And I think that works well!
    I will definitely do it sometime! :) xxx

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