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Occasionally we check in at Garrison Keillor’s – The Writer’s Almanac. On February 22 we found the following poem and emailed it to three of our classmates who are writers.
Poem: "Lament" by Edna St. Vincent Millay.
Listen, children:
Your father is dead.
From his old coats
I'll make you little jackets;
I'll make you little trousers
From his old pants.
There'll be in his pockets
Things he used to put there,
Keys and pennies
Covered with tobacco;
Dan shall have the pennies
To save in his bank;
Anne shall have the keys
To make a pretty noise with.
Life must go on,
And the dead be forgotten;
Life must go on,
Though good men die;
Anne, eat your breakfast;
Dan, take your medicine;
Life must go on;
I forget just why.
Email response from Judy to Bill
I have enjoyed and bisected this for the last few days. Anyway I cut it I like it. I see the family bent over the iron spider on the hearth. She will make something of all that is left of him. Could it be that he is in the pot? Please forgive my nonsense but we just decided this icy frozen morning to go to Cornwall after my nephews wedding in October and spend one week in London and two weeks in a stone cottage at the waters edge in Mousehole, and I am not on this planet. Rodger has advanced metastatic prostate cancer so he is billing this as his last trip to England.He is doing well on meds. I'm planning a month in Cornwall next year, just the two of us as usual. Your pictures of N.S. helped plant the seed for Penzance.
Email response from Bill to Judy
Dear Judy,
I am sorry to hear about Rodger's diagnosis. I guess it wasn't the best time for me to have sent Edna's poem but I did enjoy your comments and the thought about what is in the pot. I believe in the conservation of matter and energy – in the grand scheme everything is endlessly recycled – and I believe in an ever growing evolutionary repository of intelligence and form. I am an atheist and cannot offer you a prayer but you are in my thoughts and I wish the best for you and Rodger. Love, Bill
Email response from Judy to Bill
Most of my best friends are atheists, and those that are, always have the best thoughts. I told Abby that one of the reasons we might not make it to the reunion was Rodger's cancer and I assumed she had shared that. We are playing it by being in denial. Except when it suits us to use it, like taking money out of savings to go to Cornwall for one last good-by. Except for the cancer we would have missed Mousehole. We've been before but never in a cottage by the sea, always a hotel.
Rodger is a minimalist, recycling everything. If you give him a paper napkin at breakfast he will will stick it in his pocket and use it to blow his nose on later in the day. If his nose does not call for blowing he will use the napkin as a coaster for his tea in the afternoon. Then it becomes a bookmark and maybe still available to clean his glasses the next morning. Being an boisterous, obstreperous Irishman he saves all his generosity for life. He is still doing his bookstore and has just completed all the paper work to substitute teach at the high school. We know Lance Armstrong gave a cancer a ride for it's money and Rodger is going to live it to death. I'm a lucky woman to have him.
And you and all the HGHS kids.