Hi all – sorry for the late response of this second piece; I have had a less-than-great week.
I was really intrigued this week by William Carlos Williams’ “The Widow’s Lament in Springtime.” the last few lines really touched me this particular week –
“Today my son told me
that in the meadows,
at the edge of the heavy woods
in the distance,
he saw
trees of white flowers.
I feel that I would like
to go there
and fall into those flowers
and sink into the marsh near them.”
The footnote at the bottom of the page in the Norton’s Anthology says that this poem was for his mother; it is interesting that the speaker of the poem seems to be his mother, or perhaps just a woman in general who has lost her husband. This passage suggests that she wants to go to those white flowers – to see that tree – to bask in its solitude and beauty, and then to die beneath it. There is that feeling of being so emotionally spent, longing desperately for the person who has died, that she takes this image of the meadow that is “in the distance” – wherever her husband is – likens it to him, and then wishes to go there to bask in this representation of him, then to die in order to actually be with him.
I know that feeling of wanting to “sink into the marsh;” maybe not as a death wish, but as that feeling when you’re just not the happiest and things seem bleak and you just want to lie down and think for a little while. To just sit somewhere away from everything else and think, reflect, mourn – whichever.