“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” – Emily Dickinson.
Maria and I had lunch Thursday with our friend Ed and Carol Gulley. It was close and loving and warm time. Carol and Ed looked sad, we thought, the new reality of their lives creeping through their determination and courage and honesty.
Ed and I are having some hard and honest talks about what is ahead, he has honored me by asking me to explore some options and decisions other information about the months ahead, and I have spent the afternoon doing that and we will talk tomorrow.
it is, he knows, time to plan ahead. He is permitting himself to show more feeling, an inevitable step in his journey, a sick friend once told me there must always be sadness before joy, one cannot live without the other.
Ed wrote a very honest and touching poem this afternoon, Carol said she had reservations about putting it up on their Bejosh Farm Journal blog, but she says she is glad she did, and so am I. It’s just something he needs to feel and say before moving through this new chapter.
Even Ed can’t be – shouldn’t be – upbeat and inspiring every minute, I am glad he is giving himself a break from being so strong.
For a man who never showed much feeling he has an awful lot of feeling. Ed is a poet now, another gift he is offering the world. Ed is obsessed with doing things for people, even having cancer of the brain.
His poem was called “Things I’ll miss the most.” It deserves to be read. Ed is helping all of us face what we all must face, simply by sharing it, and since he is incapable of guile or artifice or self-pity, his poem is nothing but a gift for whoever reads it.
He said he’ll miss Carol lying naked by his side, and he wonders “why did this happen inside of my head?”
The central but unknowable question, perhaps one of the spirits around him will answer the question. We all ask why?, and we never know.
In this stage of grief, in this poem, Ed reviews his life and tell us what many of us know, that his intention was never to hurt.
“I hope the pain I took
never harmed others.
My kool is being tested,
My spirit shakes and trembles
as I walk on my journey.
Destined to judgment day.”
A Persian king once said that in a world of temporary things, poets are a perpetual feeling.
And that is what Ed is, a perpetual feeling.
Poetry is just evidence of life, wrote Leonard Cohen. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash…” Dennis Gabor said that poetry is plucking at the heartstrings, and making music with them. Carl Sandburg says that poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.
Ed’s poem is just evidence of life, a pilgrim asking the eternal questions that move the souls of people.
Ed may sometimes think it is not courageous to share such feelings so openly, he always wants to be brave for everyone, but the truth is, writing so honestly is about the bravest thing he can do. I don’t speak to God, but I know you well, Ed, and I think you will welcome the verdict on Judgement Day.
They are all waiting to shake your hand, and give you one of your landmark hugs.