Affirmation by Donald Hall
I recently read Without, Donald Hall’s collection of poems written during his wife Jane Kenyon’s battle with leukemia and after her death. I found it profoundly moving. Previously the first thing that came to mind when I thought of Donald Hall was O Cheese (which I can’t help loving), but now it’s a whole different ballgame. Anyway, my summary of Without is that Donald Hall was incredibly generous to share such an intimate glimpse into his pain. It was almost like reading a novel, and I was moved to tears more than once. I don’t think that I will post any poems from that collection, because they are much more powerful read as a whole. However, Hall has lots of other great poems, and I intend to share a number of them. Today’s is called Affirmation and you can hear Hall’s reading along with some comments courtesy of the Poetry Foundation. As a precaution, I saved the file as a backup.
Affirmation
By Donald Hall
To grow old is to lose everything.
Aging, everybody knows it.
Even when we are young,
we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads
when a grandfather dies.
Then we row for years on the midsummer
pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage,
that began without harm, scatters
into debris on the shore,
and a friend from school drops
cold on a rocky strand.
If a new love carries us
past middle age, our wife will die
at her strongest and most beautiful.
New women come and go. All go.
The pretty lover who announces
that she is temporary
is temporary. The bold woman,
middle-aged against our old age,
sinks under an anxiety she cannot withstand.
Another friend of decades estranges himself
in words that pollute thirty years.
Let us stifle under mud at the pond’s edge
and affirm that it is fitting
and delicious to lose everything.
