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Loneliness is not an accident or a choice.
It’s an uninvited and uncreated companion.
It slips in beside you when you are not aware that a
choice you are making will have consequences.
It does you no good even though it’s like one of the
elements in the world that you cannot exist without.
It takes your hand and walks with you. It lies down
with you. It sits beside you. It’s as dark as a shadow
but it has substance that is familiar.
It swims with you and swings around on stools.
It boards the ferry and leans on the motel desk.
Nothing great happens as a result of loneliness.
Your character flaws remain in place. You still stop in
with friends and have wonderful hours among them,
but you must run as soon as you hear it calling.
It does call. And you climb the stairs obediently,
pushing aside books and notes to let it know that you
have returned to it, all is well.
If you don’t answer its call, you sense that it will sink
towards a deep gravity and adopt a limp.
From loneliness you learn very little. It pulls you
back, it pulls you down.
It’s the manifestation of a vow never made but kept:
I will go home now and forever in solitude.
And after that loneliness will accompany you to
every airport, train station, bus depot, café, cinema,
and onto airplanes and into cars, strange rooms and
offices, classrooms and libraries, and it will hang near
your hand like a habit.
But it isn’t a habit and no one can see it.
It’s your obligation, and your companion warms itself
against you.
You are faithful to it because it was the only vow you
made finally, when it was unnecessary.
If you figured out why you chose it, years later, would
you ask it to go?
How would you replace it?
No, saying good-bye would be too embarrassing.
Why?
First you might cry.
Because shame and loneliness are almost one.
Shame at existing in the first place. Shame at being
visible, taking up space, breathing some of the sky,
sleeping in a whole bed, asking for a share.
Loneliness feels so much like shame, it always seems
to need a little more time on its own.
From no nowhere not near the sea on blue field flax the cemetery's absolutely solitary you and you and a third of a pound of bread for supper in the refectory where I would die of hunger if you--if soon--if on this unday--one undoing would be undone
The rain falls on. Acres of violets unfold. Dandelion, mayflower Myrtle and forsythia follow. The cardinals call to each other. Echoes of delicate Breath-broken whistles. I know something now About subject, object, verb And about one word that fails For lack of substance. Now people say, He passed on Instead of that. Unit Of space subtracted by one. It almost rhymes with earth. What is a poet but a person Who lives on the ground Who laughs and listens Without pretension of knowing Anything, driven by the lyric's Quest for rest that never (God willing) will be found? Concord, kitchen table, 1966. Corbetts, Creeley, a grandmother And me. Sweater, glasses, One wet eye. Lots of laughter Before and after. Every meeting Rhymed and fluttered into meter. The beat was the message. . . . (for Robert Creeley)
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