On Loss and Poetry

     Some of the profoundest poetry has proceeded from privation--from the pain of persons, possessions, or positions departing a person's grasp.  One has simply to consider the countless laments, elegies, and odes written over the millennia, among which number the Iliad, Beowulf, and Lamentations, with more authored by notables ranging from Ovid and Milton to Shelley and Tennyson to Dickinson and Hughes.  Through poetry, Mankind has explored each stage of grief: the denial and anger; the instinctive, futile attempt to bargain; the following depression; the survivor's guilt--or legitimate guilt for a wrong that cannot now be rectified; and the final sorrowful acceptance.  In reading such poetry, one may vicariously and cathartically experience these feelings and find comfort--or already possessing that, sympathize.

     "Whence comes this doleful reflection?" you may ask; "Do you reflect on your own grief?" and I must confess that the pain of loss has indeed imposed itself on me of late.  My dear companion of one and a half years--my Kindle--took a tumble down some stairs and now works no more.  Accompanying my sorrow are sizable doses of regret and self-disgust, for it slipped from my grasp as I foolishly carried it along with two folding chairs and a box of miscellanea on my final trip to a friend's car while helping her move.  (I hadn't even had the opportunity to read to my friend as we worked!)  Fortunately, I have not lost the Kindle's contents, which I may access by other means, but the device is a loss that my heart--and my wallet when I get around to replacing it--certainly do not take lightly.
     Petty though this setback is compared with the loss of a person, I have observed that most humans likewise mourn their own irrecoverable objects--not just any lost or damaged object, mind, but any such item of beneficial or sentimental value--any material treasure.  Upon reading that, the reader may, like me, feel the heretofore unstated admonition to "store up treasure in heaven" rather than on earth.  That is only right, and in the mourners' defense, we usually mourn missed objects with milder and briefer feelings than we experience for missed people.  It feels only natural that longing, irritation, or regret would prick us when would normally see or use said objects, particularly with commonly seen or used objects, and I do not mean here to debate the evils or lack thereof of accustoming ourselves to and appreciating material objects; it goes almost without saying that a materialistic or excessively possessive perspective is wrong.  Thus, I shall let the occasional pang that occurs when I think to use the Kindle remind me to realign my values and hone my ability to find contentment in any circumstance.

     To finally bring this contemplation full circle, upon reflection on my loss, I recalled the common link between loss and poetry, and it then seemed meet to write an elegiac lament for it (for which I researched a great deal about spondees and dactylic hexameter and pentameter, which purportedly form the traditional elegiac couplet . . . though I found that few self-named elegies employ it).  Unfortunately, I found the proscribed rhythm hard to work with, and I work on it still to challenge myself, so you'll have to make do (or "you've escaped"?) with this written prosaic contemplation until I work it out.

(P.S. Weeks later while working on the poem, Blogger decided that backspace meant I wanted to delete the entire post, and now it's gone with no hope of retrieval.  >:(  So much for this particular foray into poetry.)

     Fare thee well!