For Edna St. Vincent Millay

If death finds me Before turning to you, Do this, somehow, If somehow it can be done: Carry my body to Austerlitz And drag it up the hill, Through the woods at Steepletop To the place where the poet lies Submerged in the ground, Adrift in death And turning in time, Suspended, like an ancient seed Beyond the reach of roving worms.Carry me through empty night When others have retreated To the comfort of homes And take me, quietly, Up the hill, beyond the firs And further still, Through somber summer air Or winter’s cold indifference But, take me there, in any case, Through paths that still resound With the echo of her rapid step, Beyond the basil and verbena That, in a garden, wait for her; Past ryegrass fields from which she saw The day descend and night withdraw, To the ground that holds her modest grave Marked, simply, by a common rockAnd when you find it, stop And dig my grave upon a spot Beside the one in which she lies.

Dig with diligence and speed With all your strength and will; Create a berth that’s wide and deep So that I may rest for the rest of timeForever in her company; And, when your work is done, Recite a quiet prayer for me And say a prayer for yourself as well And pray for Edna St. Vincent Millay, Say “amen” and let me drop And do your best to cover me up.I’ll utter not a word For a century or two, at least, For fear that I might disrupt The subtle process of her thought But, when the time is right, I’ll cough, quietly, To let her know that I exist; And, in time, let fly A remark or two That I’ve rehearsed A thousand times through the course of years To sound spontaneous and, yet, profound (Regarding, perhaps, the banality of death). And, in time, she shall speak to me And we shall converse, from time to time, With ever increasing frequency, About all and everything, Of matters great and trivial, And anything that comes to mind (for the silence of death is unbearable).And she will, one day, understand That her temperament is very much like mine And, inevitably, we shall spend our days In dialogue, like old friends Each unable to abandon the other Without expressing a final thought,and then another, And chat away as decades pass Like moments pass within a dream And we shall, no doubt, laugh out loud And gossip in rapid code, And speak of traumas that haunt us still And loss that came as we grew up And regret that came as we grew old, And we shall periodically exchange The truths and secrets that may be shared only by those who have lived and died.Eventually, the day will come When she will teach me how to see The whole of all and everything, And set me on the road That winds through time To hold, again, my hidden heart That, long ago, I left behind (misguided as I was back then) And she will show me how to see The beauty of the world Through which I pass, Illumined by light luxuriant That lights the way And warms the path.In a thousand years, When worms and insects Have had their fill, Our bodies reduced to dust And lost like drops of rain Upon the ground, I’d ask her (oh so carefully) What manner of vision it was That brought her face to face With God each day, And enabled her to see The world with utter clarity, And find simplicity in beauty And beauty in simple things, And point to it and say to me: “Hello, it’s there, in front of you“;

I’ll ask how it felt to see A sky that others couldn’t see, And hear the loon’s soft melody Inaudible to the rest of us, And what it was, one afternoon, That prompted her to wander off While lost in thought, And trip along the gilded edge of Autumn’s long perimeter And, in a sudden, stop and lean Against the rusted wire fence And linger there to contemplate The endless, fallow fields of death.In time, I’d ask her how it was that she could simply sit Upon a chair before her desk And lift her pen into the air And set it down upon the empty page And convert those holy things to words, Destined to outlive the very things described, Secure within the sanctuary of those words, So appropriate and apt, Sensual and wrapped in light, Rhythmic, aromatic and serene, Alive as images upon the page like photos in a picture book, Myriad, wonderful things: Sullen rocks and graveyards, Trembling lips and orange peels, Barren weeds and half-closed eyes, Moss and mist and beached fish, Pigeons and the scent of lavender, things that were loved and things that died, Images that can be touched and seen, Alive in words like words in a song That shouldn’t be recited But should, instead, be sung.Though I was born into the world Long after she had left it, I will ask how it came to be That she could know me perfectly, And how it could beThat, through her words, I found myself on a ferry boat Riding back and forth all night, Aimless and exuberant, And saw, through her words, a shawl covered head And, ever since, have felt the weight Of death’s relentless gravity; And how it could be That, through her words, I once did see, in front of me, Three long mountains and a wood And I beheld, as well, Three islands in a bay, And, most important, How it was that, long ago, On a quiet night, The open book upon my lap, I turned the page and, suddenly, I wasn’t there but somewhere else And, somehow, had come to Steepletop And sat amid the cottongrass Beyond the spruce and sycamore, Past trillium and pitcher plants And as I sat, in ecstasy, The sun rose up in front of me.