On festive and non-festive days, old UD loves to read the poems of James Merrill. In the last weeks of his life, he wrote Christmas Tree, in which his wasting body is compared to a holiday tree taken in and decorated by a celebrating family — he is made to feel loved and cared for and even prettied up, shined up, in his last days, although the poet/tree knows that, having been cut down, his/its days are very much numbered. The hospital was the tree farm, where the poet has been “looked after, kept still,” but now it’s clear “there [is] nothing more to do,” and the poet will have to leave the hospital and go home to die.
Yet it’s Merrill, the poet, who inexhaustibly, to the end, elaborates, accessorizes, decorates, warms, and bejewels life — as I said in my last post about him, he’s no discouraged Prufrock. He keeps going, keeps embellishing. He’s an artist, mes petites. We can’t rescue the family jewels from the fire, but he can. Even as he’s dying, he can. Surrounded by loved ones in his warm home, covered in thick “sables,” nonetheless jewels from life continue to “flash forth” around him from these coverings. He’s not buried yet. Propitiating miracle-makers (amulets, milagros) hang from his body and a song plays and replays – brilliant, magical life continues to be wound about him.
And in shadow behind me, a primitive IV
To keep the show going.
The holiday and the primitive at-home IV/ivy. To keep the blood going. Heart-stopping poetry if you ask me.
Yes, yes, what lay ahead
Was clear: the stripping, the cold street, my chemicals
Plowed back into the Earth for lives to come—
No bullshit about it, I’m all lit up and about to die; my festive duties done, my poems written, I’m about to be stripped of my jewels, with my poor naked trunk about to be revealed for the rail-thin thing it is. I’m about to be buried, pine/IV “needles and bone.” And I’m ready to go.
Last image from last moments – a world in dusk, to be sure, but dusk “aglow,” with candlelight, loving faces, gifts brought to the tree, brought by the tree.
Still to be so poised, so
Receptive. Still to recall, praise.
The last lines of the last poem echo Merrill’s endless reverberating theme, as in his great poem “Santorini: Stopping the Leak,” where he insists on walking the volcanic, gorgeous island, staying poised and balanced and upright, despite serious pain from ailments in his feet. The imperative always is to stay in the game, to remain receptive to all of life, to call and recall, and above all to lyrically praise.
Christmas Tree
⭐
To be
Brought down at last
From the cold sighing mountain
Where I and the others
Had been fed, looked after, kept still,
Meant, I knew—of course I knew—
That it would be only a matter of weeks,
That there was nothing more to do.
Warmly they took me in, made much of me,
The point from the start was to keep my spirits up.
I could assent to that. For honestly,
It did help to be wound in jewels, to send
Their colors flashing forth from vents in the deep
Fragrant sables that cloaked me head to foot.
Over me then they wove a spell of shining—
Purple and silver chains, eavesdripping tinsel,
Amulets, milagros: software of silver,
A heart, a little girl, a Model T,
Two staring eyes. Then angels, trumpets, BUD and BEA
(The children’s names) in clownlike capitals,
Somewhere a music box whose tiny song
Played and replayed I ended before long
By loving. And in shadow behind me, a primitive IV
To keep the show going. Yes, yes, what lay ahead
Was clear: the stripping, the cold street, my chemicals
Plowed back into the Earth for lives to come—
No doubt a blessing, a harvest, but one that doesn’t bear,
Now or ever, dwelling upon. To have grown so thin.
Needles and bone. The little boy’s hands meeting
About my spine. The mother’s voice: Holding up wonderfully!
No dread. No bitterness. The end beginning. Today’s
Dusk room aglow
For the last time
With candlelight.
Faces love-lit
Gifts underfoot.
Still to be so poised, so
Receptive. Still to recall, praise.
***************************
Similar themes here.