The Darkling Thrush, by Thomas Hardy

Of joy illimited.

“The land’s sharp features seemed to me
The Century’s corpse outleant,
Its crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind its death-lament.”

How did you come by this poem?

I did a google search for “poems about the end of the year.” This came up.

I read this back at the turn of the year/decade. I figure that when things seem to feel dark, it’s best to read poetry. Not because I understand half of what it means, but because its complexity can be the perfect way to describe the hardest moments. I had been battling a mild case of depression or the winter blues. It’s hard to see it until the cloud that sits right above your browbone parts and allows light to come through. It never vanishes, but like those clouds that move quickly through the sky-forming and unforming-at times you can see glimpes of blue sky.

The best way for me to read a poem is to copy it into my notebook and read aloud from it in my own voice. It’s as if I have to write it down the way I imagined the author did. In scribbles, but just legible enough.

Why now?

Thomas has shown up three times in my life. At all three times I have felt like I was going through some sort of spiritual death/awakening.

He finds me. One of the times, his book was thrown at me (kinda gently) by a friend. It was the same night a colleague revealed her ability to connect with the spirit. I think that moment set off a chain of events in myself where I began to see myself differently.

So in this moment of not feeling like I can see myself with clarity, I returned to him.

Thoughts?

It’s beautiful. And complicated. And simple. It’s about those unexpected thoughts that creep into your brain at the least expected times. I have them on the train where I start to wonder about the world. Feeling both bursting of hope and suffocating in despair. It’s when you can’t unsee the universe as just one paradox after the other.

The singing of a bird cuts through the poem and reminds both the reader and observer are reminded that not all life is gone. The end of life always means the beginning of another. Right?