Time Does Not Bring Relief; You Have All Lied

I am going to do something a bit unusual for me here and post a poem that I just read for the first time today. It is a poem called - Sonnet 02:Time Does Not Bring Relief; You All Have Lied and it was written by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Frankly I feared this work was going to actually capture, permanently...a large chunk of my "Pained" SOUL and scurry away with it but in the end...I fought the GOOD FIGHT and prevailed (lost).


My reaction to it...sudden, dramatically more emotional then I expected or was prepared for...was seeing it as an EPIC SONNET about LOSS and moving on. Ever lose someone...THE someone of a lifetime? Yea? YEA....


I have...TWICE. The first time was this angel in lace and leather, scarves flowing every which way just like her hair...she died...18 and so full of life. "Too full of life to live"...I remember thinking at the time: That was the 28th of January 1981...Rest in PEACE my dear DEBBIE.


The second time...well this one didn't DIE, NO...she grew up...and just flew....flew away. My thoughts and feelings toward her are quite conflicted still and totally unresolved. I certainly LOVED her...yes, no doubt but her deceit nullify's and actually invalidates some of the remembrance...OK...she doesn't count...errrr, I suspect in some strange way she absolutely does..


So I'll re-phrase this...Yes I have experienced this kind of loss...once...perhaps 2 times in my life.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year's bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide

There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, "There is no memory of him here!"
And so stand stricken, so remembering him




I'll let her work speak now for itself...