The Last of Boland
So there’s one more Boland poem I want to post. Actually there are a couple more, but I’ll restrain myself. If you liked any of the poems I have posted lately, definitely check out Outside History. But this really truly will be the last of my Boland posts.
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I worked indefatigably [doesn’t that word look fake?] to finish my apps yesterday and today. Now I just need one more rec for one school, one more writing sample for another, and to actually e-mail the writing sample for yet another, and I’ll be done. On a depressing note, I spent over 700$ today in fees…I better get in somewhere…should be hearing back about the litgre in a few weeks…gah I don’t want to think about any of this. Final exams and papers starting Monday. Getting stress breakouts and stress induce tooth-decay nightmares again. Aren’t I unique?
And on that note stellar note, here’s a nice disturbing poem on the role of women. And as always with Boland, so subtly done that when you get to the end, your first reaction is to wonder just how you got there.
Daphne Heard with Horror the Addresses of the God - Eavan Boland
It was early summer. Already
the conservatory was all steam and greenness.
I would have known the stephanotis by
its cutthroat sweetness anywhere.
We drank tea. You were telling me
a story you had heard as a child,
about the wedding of a local girl,
long ago, and a merchant from Argyll.
I thought the garden looked so at ease.
The roses were beginning on one side.
The laurel hedge was nothing but itself,
and all of it so free of any need
for nymphs, goddesses, wounded presences -
The fleet river-daughters who took root
and can be seen in the woods in
unmistakable shapes of weeping.
You were still speaking. By the time
I paid attention they were well married:
The bridegroom had his bride on the ship.
The sails were ready to be set. You said
small craft went with her to the ship, and
as it sailed out, well-wishers
took in armfuls, handfuls, from the boats
white roses and threw them on the water.
We cleared up then, saying how
the greenfly needed spraying, the azaleas
were over; and you went inside. I
stayed in the heat looking out at
The garden in its last definition,
freshening and stirring. A suggestion,
behind it all, of darkness: in the shadow,
beside the laurel hedge, its gesture.