Lucinda Matlock by Edgar Lee Masters
I discovered this poem (from Spoon River Anthology) on Poetry on Record, read by the author. Masters’s narration was a perfect complement to the stark simplicity of the speaker’s life. When all the hardships of life (apparently of which there were many for Lucinda Matlock) are distilled down to a few lines, they seem insignificant in light of the last line. I should read this when I’m feeling sorry for myself.
P.S. How is it that I’ve never read Spoon River Anthology?
Lucinda Matlock
By Edgar Lee Masters
I went to the dances at Chandlerville,
And played snap-out at Winchester.
One time we changed partners,
Driving home in the midnight of middle June,
And then I found Davis.
We were married and lived together for seventy years,
Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children,
Eight of whom we lost
Ere I had reached the age of sixty.
I spun, I wove, I kept the house, I nursed the sick,
I made the garden, and for holiday
Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,
And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,
And many a flower and medicinal weed—
Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.
At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all,
And passed to a sweet repose.
What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you—
It takes life to love Life.
