Someone let me down. The details aren't important and the damage won't be lasting. But during the period of reeling and reflecting, and thinking too late of what I wished I'd said to her, I thought of this poem by Emily Dickinson and it gave me comfort.
Poets give voice to anguish and injuries that can afflict us all. A poet can dignify our heartbreaks and restore our hopes. In the 1934 film "Twentieth Century" John Barrymore says to the weeping Carole Lombard: "The sorrows of life are the joys of art." I wish I knew which of the five writers on that film was responsible for that line because it is very wise.
Here is the Emily Dickinson poem I turned to this morning:
It dropped so low--in my Regard--
I heard it hit the Ground--
And go to pieces on the Stones
At bottom of my Mind--
Yet blamed the Fate that flung it--less
Than I denounced Myself,
For entertaining Plated Wares
Upon my Silver Shelf--
ca. 1863
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