PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

The dying young woman was beautiful,
despite the harsh ravages of the disease
that probably would kill her later on
that night.  She asked her weeping family
to send her lover in---and to give them
(despite decorum's funereal mood)
an hour to talk through this distressed farewell.
He had put on a fresh white shirt, long-sleeved,
and wore with it gray trousers, held up by
old frayed suspenders.  "He is beautiful," she thought
to herself, "Not just handsome like most men,
"but beautiful like ancient boys were said
"to be.  She smiled, and said softly to him,
"Take your boots off."  He did:  the sight of his
sky-blue socks brought to her a thrill she had
thought lost to ravages of the disease.
"Sit down," she said.  He chose the beside edge.
Tall, slender, lithe and supple, he could have
become a dancer in the capitols
of Europe, she imagined, one more time.
When they took their long walks into the woods,
he often took his boots, and then his shirt,
off, to amuse her with an acrobat's
theatric stunts.  One day, they found, to their
surprise, an unknown clearing in the trees.
Familiar with the woods, as they both were,
neither of them had noticed that before.
And, in the midst of it, as they looked on,
a pastel light shimmered and glowed, without
high heat or piecing glare.  Strange images
began to flash within their minds:  these told
a somewhat terrifying, epic tale
that must takes its commencement with her death.
"So do I have your promise that you will
"follow the plan after I die tonight?"
Tears flooded his dark eyes.  He could not speak,
but only nodded as his breath came hard.
To comfort him, she said, "I do not know
"why I am not more frightened, knowing that
"I must depart this life---except that light
"has given me encouraged certainty
"that even this disease cannot destroy
"until my eyes have closed in mortal peace.
"Be sure you know what you must do---from now
"until the end, the very end, which will
"not come with haste, but takes its unrushed time.
"Meanwhile, people will suffer without hope,
"until the hour is right for you to act.
"Please promise me, once more, that you will do
"your very best to follow with this plan."
He whispered in a voice grown hoarse with grief,
and yet a sound she loved to hear, "I do."
He---she---and "it"---so had the three of them
communicated in that clearing, known
apparently to no one but themselves.
They could not guess its nature.  It did not
use human words.  Details were not given,
except her fate had been, already, set:
she must die.  But how he would bear the loss,
and what, in years ahead, it would begin
to mean to him as he, so very much,
gave meditation to this very hour
(such that, when much engaged with mundane tasks,
he would be seen, by others, to take pause
to weep for no reason observed by them).
Of course, he had choices:  he could besot
himself with drink, and find a stupored death;
or hasten it with craven suicide.
Or keep himself ready, and make himself
prepared to heave a mighty sacrifice
(which would, at its end, bring him to his death)
to save the lives of multitudes of men
and women whose lives were bereft of joy.
That morning, when the shimmering, pastel
light touched their minds, as they stood hand in hand---
both barefoot---they saw glimpses of great throngs
of people:  some to be preserved to life,
and some to die, in order to secure
and succor those lives.  He, himself, would join
those dead, the last of them, the final shock
of that vast struggle that still lay ahead,
a Friday's casualty if he agreed.
"If you consent to this," she said, and he,
clutching the bed's edge, said, "I swear for you."
Then she reminded him, "The light foretold
"to us that you will not smile very much.
"And I must put up with the knowledge that
"you will seek comfort in another's arms.
"But there, you will not find it very long.
"Yet at the unknown stroke that will require
"you to relinquish your life, to conclude
"the great upsurge that changes history---
"you will smile in that moment when you see
"me, as I will see you and never more
"to be parted.  I hope that comforts you.
"I hope that you will cling to it, as I
"cling to it now, as my time slips away."
He looked at her.  "The very thought of you
"is happiness to me.  Your absence will
"be like a wound that never can be healed."
She nodded.  "Yes, it comes at quite a cost
"to both of us.  But should I die and you
"destroy your life with liquor or a rope---
"the easy way, that does nobody good?"
He covered his face with his hands, and said,
"No, I do not want that for either of
"us, not like that."  And she said, "No, not with
"that great number of lives at stake, as well
"as the dreadful responsibility
"to choose who must face death, that others live.
"But even more than that, the Common Soul
"of all our people must not be betrayed
"by the suppression of justice and law.
"Choose malice for none, charity toward all.
"Tell them---when you stand on a battlefield,
"empty of victims, but still soaked with blood---
"how they must strive in preservation of
"the founding fathers' great experiment."
Tired, she lay back.  Trembling, he knelt to kiss
her pale bare feet. He knew that she preferred
for him to leave her now, rather than leave
the memory of her corpse on his mind.
He stumbled out, his boots in hand, to sit
against a stump; and wept until he saw
them take the coffin in, open, and then
(after the slam of hammers upon wood,

so freshly harvested) to bring it out,
nailed shut.  In slow procession, they conveyed
her---Abraham Lincoln's beloved, Ann
Rutledge---to the old pioneers' graveyard.

"Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln,
Wedded to him, not through union,
But through separation.
Bloom forever, O Republic,
From the dust of my bosom!"

---Edgar Lee Masters, "Anne Rutledge"