Anna Akhmatova

Sunday morning, October 31, 2010 -- I have many chores to do and yet I cannot put down this book of poetry, this book of answers. I flip through the voluminous Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova for a thank you/gratitude poem for the friend who gave me this book. I know Akhmatova’s poems from ’96, when my passionate, painter lover sent me:

2

And as if by mistake
I used the familiar: “Ty…”
And the shadow of a smile lit up
Your sweet features.

From slips such as these
Such glances can blaze…
I love you like forty
Fond sisters.

Page 115, I tore a scrap of paper from my to-do list to remember, just a small piece to mark a moment between chores, a memory. I must get back to work. The coffee is cold. I am cold. Having stripped the bed for wash and not turned on the heat, I put in a load of laundry. Feeling less guilty, I open the book again. Shouldn’t I feel guilty that I haven’t written anything but lesson plans and meeting minutes for over a month? I am the poet. My friend gave me this book because I am the poet and yet I skim the shorter poems thinking I really don’t have all day. I should buy Halloween candy and write this thank you note. Where is the poem of gratitude?

Maybe page 93? But first, some context. My friend bought this book for my birthday. I turned 50 this last May. We, just two weeks ago, October 15th, found time to finally meet. She joined me for another birthday, six months of sobriety and brought me this book. I was grateful to have her there to honor six months of ridding myself of those profligate companions, whiskey & wine. The challenge, oh the challenge of saying goodbye to my toxic love. There is no replacement right now, only faith that “placid happiness” will again lead to some form of sober bliss. Thank you, Karen, for recognizing both of my birthdays:

When you’re drunk it’s so much fun –
Your stories don’t make sense.
An early fall has strung
The elms with yellow flags.

We’ve strayed in to the land of deceit
And we’re repenting bitterly,
Why then are we smiling these
Strange and frozen smiles?

We wanted piercing anguish
Instead of placid happiness…
I won’t abandon my comrade,
So dissolute and mild.

A woman in my recovery group was asking if this contentment and serenity was pretty much it or would she ever again experience those adrenaline rushes she identified as happiness. I worry about that for myself. What if the quivering passion I’ve known in the past was purely alcohol induced and I will never write another love poem or even marvel at the warm night breath on the other side of the pillow, so much so that I never wish to sleep again.
Such a thunderstorm, of course,
Promised me little joy,
I learned about the eyes of happiness
Accidently.

I cannot choreograph my happiness, but I am aware, this chilly morning, that poetry and music are stirring something richer, sweeter than wine in me.

Broad and yellow is the evening light,
Tender the April coolness.
You are so many years late,
Nevertheless I am glad you came.

Sit here closer to me
And look on joyfully:
Here is a blue composition book –
With the poems of my childhood.

Forgive me that I ignored the sun
And that I lived in sorrow.
Forgive, forgive, that I
Mistook too many others for you.

After my lover introduced me to Akhmatova, I ingested as many of her poems as I could. Given that I am not Russian, not political, do not read Pushkin or Brodsky, I wondered, at first, if I could find any connection to this poet. Then I found her love poems. She understood the dialectic nature of love. She reminded me that a lover was not my ticket to happiness. She wrote what I couldn’t say, that conflict in me of “I want, I want, I want, but not too close, not too long, not too deep to rip open those old scars.” I battle my need for love and companionship every day. I fight this desire to belong to just one and the pain of exclusion when I discover I am only one of many. I DO NOT NEED anyone. I know the absurdity of that statement. I know I will love again and again and again. By the time I die, my heart will be stitched together so many times, patches upon patches, that even Goodwill will refuse its capacity to warm anyone anymore.

Love

Now, like a little snake, it curls into a ball,
Bewitching your heart,
Then for days it will coo like a dove
On the little white windowsill.

Or it will flash as bright frost,
Drowse like a gillyflower
But surely and stealthily it will lead you away
From joy and from tranquility.

It knows how to sob so sweetly
In the prayer of a yearning violin,
And how fearful to divine it
In a still unfamiliar smile.

No wonder AA suggests people in recovery not enter love relationships until at least a year. And yet, the irony, if God is love, and in AA we surrender to a loving God, we surrender our hearts, first thing, to both the dove and the snake. Yes? Hmmm…maybe that IS the point of that little Eden/Apple story! Where is the freedom in this understanding?

One heart isn’t chained to another,
If you want to – leave!
There’s lots of happiness in store
For one who’s free

I’m not weeping, I’m not complaining,
Happiness is not for me.
Don’t kiss me. I am weary –
Death will kiss me.

Days of gnawing tedium endured
With the winter snow.
Why, oh why should you
Be better than the one I chose?

Okay, I hear the sarcasm in this poem and the implication that the only true freedom is death. I was drinking myself to death. I wanted to die, not obviously by my hand, but surreptitiously, so I might be able to include others in the killing and blame; obliquely, “they” led me to this…all those who would not claim me as their number one love and concern. (Can you tell I’m working on Step 4?) Well, Akhmatova has a poem for that, too.
Page 99. Ironically, the lover who introduced me to Akhmatova, also introduced me to the pain of ultimate exclusion, returning to her husband, introducing me to the bitter cheap penny side of her love.

To the Muse

The Muse, my sister, looked into my face,
Her glance was bright and clear,
And she took away the golden ring,
The first springtime gift.

Muse! You see how happy they all are,
Girls, wives, widows…
Better to perish on the wheel,
But not these chains.

I know: yes, no, even I must tear off
The delicate daisy petals.
Everyone on earth is destined to feel
The torments of love.

I keep the candle burning in the window till dawn
And I don’t long for anyone,
But I don’t want, don’t want, don’t want
To know how they kiss each other.

Page 99. The tears of loss brewed again, trouncing on this morning’s hunger pains. Ten years gone by and still I cry on to page 99; “a blissful bird” has not yet “sang his fill/About the way we define our love.” And yet, I am finally able to say that I DO want again. I am willing to drain out that blanket of inebriation that kept me from feeling pain OR joy. I am willing to confess honestly, my needs and my manipulations.

It is 2:15 and I still haven’t eaten, still in my pajamas, still a bit dry-mouthed from the fear of exposure and the fear of rejection that I feel certain will come from these Step 4 admissions and from putting off what I think others expect me to do today. But I am the poet and I am the lover and maybe today, October 31st, I should not wear any other costume. – the independent Girl Scout, the dutiful daughter, the empathetic healer, the conscientious teacher, the stone butch, the housekeeper, the even keeled grownup, the overly generous friend…Just me today. The tears have cleansed me, readied me for the banal, the laundry. Thank you, Akhmatova. Thank you, Karen.