She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways
William Wordsworth 1798
She dwelt upon the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:
***
A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
-Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.
***
She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be:
But she is in her grave, and oh,
The difference to me!
*
I wrote this, below, 20 years ago tomorrow.
But as I speak tonight, it’s 40 years ago not far from here, that my own little Lucy ceased to be and it struck me as I walked outside in the middle of the night that now was about the time.
I was wrong about the song, apparently.
***
it was twenty years ago today...
...my baby died in her sleep. which is what we all say is how we want to go isn't it?
she's a blur, a dream.
i pinch myself and know her to be a fact.
i broke my finger yesterday. now i feel sickly and ouch and annoyed and it's fitting to feel a bit low today.
didn't do it on purpose of course and it's a bloody nuisance but sometimes one looks for a reason to emphasise the pain you want to feel.
just so you don't think you're forgetting, or something.
she's not my handy topic, my maudlin common thread that we might have, my deep reason for you to empathise.
i've never put it public like this and i'm healthy about it and so on but she truly did exist and i forget that a bit
and usually it's ok, but
they played 'the first time ever i saw your face' which is about her baby being born, they played it on the radio on the way home from 5 hours at the hospital last night.
how do they know to play it every year on her birthday or this her death day?
my brain gets it. some people die young and some don't. but today i feel sad and sick a bit and the mid-day movie's crap and my finger is throbbing to the rhythm.
lucille gladys melia . january 4th 1982 - september 4th 1982
