Family History #1: Lindsey & Haddix

THE OLDEST PHOTOS
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

MY GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDMOTHER
MARTHA B. WORK LINDSEY (1794 - 1877)

&

MY GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDFATHER
SAMUEL B. LINDSEY (1789 - 1883)

Samuel & Martha
were married on September 6, 1814
and were the . . .

Parents of Robert David Lindsey (1815 - 1901)
married to Mary Sankey (1815 - 1892) in 1839
[no pictures available of Robert Lindsey or Mary Sankey]

Grandparents of James Sankey Lindsey (1846 - 1921)
married to Sarah Elisabeth Hartman (1856 - 1937) on April 22, 1877

Great -Grandparents of Paul Jones Lindsey (1895 - 1983)
married to Mary Rovilla Heideman (1891 - 1966) on March 20, 1927

Great-great-grandparents of my mother
Mary Elisabeth Lindsey Carriker (1931 - 2020)

*********************

MY GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDFATHER HADDIX

Osborn, Ohio ~ Homestead of my great-great-great grandparents
John P. Haddix (1791 - 1888) ~ in photo above
& Sarah Elizabeth Cox (1798–1860) ~ sadly, no photo available
Married March 29, 1817

John & Sarah were the . . .

Parents of Sarah Elizabeth Haddix (1826 - 1861)
married to Charles Gordon Hartman (1824 - 1897) on June 4, 1850
[Sarah Haddix ~ picture below; Charles Hartman ~ sadly, none available]

Grandparents of Sarah Elisabeth Hartman (1856 - 1937)
[picture below]
married to James Sankey Lindsey (1846 - 1921) on April 22, 1877

Great-grandparents of Paul Jones Lindsey (1895 - 1983)
[picture below]
married to Mary Rovilla Lindsey (1891 - 1966) on March 20, 1927

Great-great-grandparents of my mother
Mary Elisabeth Lindsey Carriker (1931 - 2020)
[picture below]

Tracing the family tree, most humans have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, 16 great - great - grandparents, 32 great - great - greats, 64 greats x4, 128 greats x5, 256 greats x6, 512 greats x7, and so on and so forth.

Above, you see only three of my Grandfather Paul Lindsey's eight great - grandparents. That would be a mere three of my thirty - two great - great - great grandparents. These are the oldest pictures in my possession -- all three ca. 1870 -- so I picked them as a starting point for fulfilling a couple of requests from my elder son Ben: to arrange a collection of old family photographs and to compile all of my blogposts featuring the various ancestors.

Remarkably, just this week,
my cousin Linda F. D. shared with me
this even earlier picture (1850 or before)
a painting of John Haddix's daughter:

MY GREAT- GREAT - GRANDMOTHER HARTMAN

Sarah Elizabeth Haddix Bacon Hartman (1826 - 1861)
daughter of John P. Haddix (1791 - 1888)

along with this explanation
written to Linda's mother Sally
from our Great Aunt Mabel

Sarah Elizabeth's first child, born in Indiana
MY GREAT- GRANDMOTHER LINDSEY

Sarah Elisabeth Hartman Lindsey (1856 - 1937)
granddaughter of John P. Haddix (1791 - 1888)

Sarah Elisabeth's first child, born back in Ohio,
in the house shown above
MY GREAT - AUNT MABEL

Bertha Mabel Lindsey (1880 - 1968)
great - granddaughter of John P. Haddix (1791 - 1888)

MY GRANDFATHER PAUL JONES LINDSEY

MY MOTHER MARY ELISABETH LINDSEY CARRIKER

*********************

TO BE CONTINUED
in the meantime . . .

Lots of Family Pictures: Calendar 2024
Calendar 2025: #1 ~ #2 ~ #3

There's no vocabulary for love within a family,
love that's lived in but not looked at,
love within the light of which all else is seen,
the love within which all other love finds speech.
This love is silent." ~ T. S. Eliot
Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, May 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Where Aunt Mabel Lived

WHEN OUR DAY WAS FAIR
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

Bertha Mabel Lindsey (1880 - 1968)

The Voice

Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,
Saying that now you are not as you were
When you had changed from the one who was all to me,
But as at first, when our day was fair.

Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then,
Standing as when I drew near to the town
Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,
Even to the original air-blue gown!

Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness
Travelling across the wet mead to me here,
You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,
Heard no more again far or near?

Thus I; faltering forward,
Leaves around me falling,
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,
And the woman calling.

By Thomas Hardy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, try reading this beautiful poem again,
this time replacing the word woman
with the word house:

"House much missed, how you call to me, call to me . . .
And the house calling."

Based on addresses and return addresses from old letters and envelopes, my cousin Linda F. D. and I have been tracking down the various apartments and houses inhabited by our Great-Aunt Mabel throughout the years.

1.
This seems to be one of earliest:
2704 Peery Avenue, built 1912
(the right - hand side is 2704)

2.
This is the return address on a stack of letters
that Mabel has written to her younger brother Paul
(my grandfather) when he was stationed in China in 1923:
107 Altman Building
I'm not sure if this would have been Mabel's residence;
it could have been the location of her Beauty Salon.

The Altman is just around the corner
from the big National Fidelity Life Building
shown on the stationery of Mabel's husband:

All of the World War I corespondence
concerning the death of Mabel's brother Sam
was sent to 1005 Walnut Street:

3.
Great-Grandmother Sarah Elisabeth Hartman Lindsey
used this return address in the 1920s:
3426 E 62nd Street

Mabel's youngest sister, my Great-Aunt Gail
standing in front of #3426 -- early 1920s

#3426 Today

4.
At some point, possibly after Sarah's death in 1937,
Mabel & Jack moved to 4288 E 54th Street
Here is my Grandfather Paul Lindsey, Mabel's younger brother,
visiting them in 1944:

#4288 Today

5.

Based on a postmark, Mabel was living here in June 1967
— one year after my Grandpa Paul took me to visit her,
probably at this address:
4511 Independence Avenue, Apartment 1

Google Maps indicates that in the early 2000s the building was still all red brick (as shown above), which is how it must have looked when I visited. I wish I could remember being there, but the memory is just too hazy, beyond being on the train, riding an escalator for the first time when we got to Union Station, and getting on a bus to take us to Mabel’s. I was 9 years old.

Trying to piece it all together, Cousin Linda recalls "a narrow steep interior stair up to Aunt Mabel's apartment which was at the top to the right. She always had fudge for me. I can remember visiting her many times, and I know she lived with us for awhile."
#4511 Today

I have spent many hours pouring over the details, re-reading the letters, obsessing about all these old addresses, and wishing that we could travel back in time for a day or so! Independence Avenue seems an odd location for Mabel to end up for those last few years of her life, although Peery Avenue and even 1005 Walnut Street are not that far apart — and all on the north side; whereas the two big craftsman houses on 62nd and 54th were both far south, near Swope Park.

Trying to analyze Mabel's trajectory around the city, I hear the voice of Thomas Hardy's poem, the voice of the woman much missed -- so many women: Sarah, Mabel, Beatrice, Virginia, Gail. And the voice of the houses themselves, "Saying that now you are not as you were."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One of the best old house poems ever:

To My Old Addresses

Help! Get out of here! Go walking!
Forty-six (I think) Commerce Street, New York City
The Quai des Brumes nine thousand four hundred twenty-six, Paris
Georgia Tech University Department of Analogues
Jesus Freak Avenue No. 2, in Clattery, Michigan
George Washington Model Airplane School, Bisbee, Arizona
Wonderland, the stone font, Grimm’s Fairy Tales
Forty-eight Greenwich Avenue the landlady has a dog
She lets run loose in the courtyard seven
Charles Street which Stefan Volpe sublet to me
Hotel Des Fleurus in Paris, Via Convincularia in Rome
Where the motorcycles speed
Twelve Hamley Road in Southwest London O
My old addresses! O my addresses! Are you addresses still?
Or has the hand of Time roughed over you
And buffered and stuffed you with peels of lemons, limes, and shells
From old institutes? If I address you
It is mostly to know if you are well.
I am all right but I think I will never find
Sustenance as I found in you, oh old addresses
Numbers that sink into my soul
Forty-eight, nineteen, twenty-three, O worlds in which I was alive!

Kenneth Koch (1925 - 2002)

Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, May 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs ~ The Great Aunts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Death I Recant

DEATH SHALL DIE
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

Cemetery near Rosslyn Chapel
Chapel Loan, Roslin, Midlothian, Scotland
7 miles (approx) south of Edinburgh City Center
RE Da Vinci Code ~ Dan Brown
[@Instatoon]

John Donne's best - known and most - memorized poem,
Holy Sonnet #10:

"DEATH, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die."
John Donne (1572–1631)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is Watts a century after Donne,
repeating the hopeful mantra that "death shall die":

"His own soft hand shall wipe the tears
From every weeping eye,
And pains, and groans, and griefs, and fears,
And death itself, shall die."
Isaac Watts (1674 – 1748)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And John Henry Cardinal Newman
a century after Watts:

"Farewell, but not for ever! brother dear,
Be brave and patient on thy bed of sorrow;
Swiftly shall pass thy night of trial here,
And I will come and wake thee on the morrow."
John Henry Newman (1801 - 1890)
from The Dream of Gerontius (1865)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not long after the defiant words of Sonnet #10, in another poem, Donne sadly conceded that Death is more powerful than he had previously stated. When his literary acquaintance Cecily Bulstrod (1584 – 1609) died young and tragically from a misdiagnosed internal illness, Donne took back his earlier words. Rather than being "slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men," Death now precedes creation and is stronger than good, stronger than evil. This Death will never die:

Elegy on Mistress Boulstred

DEATH I recant, and say unsaid by me,
Whate’er hath slipp’d, that might diminish thee.
Spiritual treason, atheism ’tis to say
That any can thy summons disobey.
The earth’s face is but thy table; there are set
Plants, cattle, men, dishes for death to eat.
In a rude hunger now he millions draws
Into his bloody, or plaguy, or starved jaws. . . .

O strong and long-lived death, how cam'st thou in?
And how without creation didst begin?
Thou hast, and shalt see dead, before thou diest,
All the four monarchies, and antichrist.

How could I think thee nothing, that see now
In all this All nothing else is, but thou?
Our births and lives, vices and virtues, be
Wasteful consumptions, and degrees of thee.
For we, to live, our bellows wear and breath,
Nor are we mortal, dying, dead, but death. . . .
[See below for entire poem]

From dust thou art, from breath thou art,
and to thin air thou shalt return.

Passing by the Cemetery
~ in my carriage ~ but "could not stop for death."
Rural Indiana, between Indianapolis & Lafayette

More about Donne by Katherine Rundell
John Donne: poet of love ~ poet of death
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, April 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs ~ see also: "Belief . . . Disbelief
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading ~ "Death Awaits, Books Await"
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Elegy on Mistress Boulstred
Death I recant, and say, unsaid by me
Whate'er hath slipped, that might diminish thee.
Spiritual treason, atheism 'tis, to say,
That any can thy summons disobey.
Th' earth's race is but thy table; there are set
Plants, cattle, men, dishes for Death to eat.
In a rude hunger now he millions draws
Into his bloody, or plaguey, or starved jaws.
Now he will seem to spare, and doth more waste,
Eating the best first, well preserved to last.
Now wantonly he spoils, and eats us not,
But breaks off friends, and lets us piecemeal rot.
Nor will this earth serve him; he sinks the deep
Where harmless fish monastic silence keep,
Who (were Death dead) by roes of living sand,
Might sponge that element, and make it land.
He rounds the air, and breaks the hymnic notes
In birds', heaven's choristers, organic throats,
Which (if they did not die) might seem to be
A tenth rank in the heavenly hierarchy.

O strong and long-lived death, how cam'st thou in?
And how without creation didst begin?
Thou hast, and shalt see dead, before thou diest,
All the four monarchies, and antichrist.

How could I think thee nothing, that see now
In all this all, nothing else is, but thou.
Our births and lives, vices, and virtues, be
Wasteful consumptions, and degrees of thee.
For, we to live, our bellows wear, and breath,
Nor are we mortal, dying, dead, but death.

And though thou be'st, O mighty bird of prey,
So much reclaimed by God, that thou must lay
All that thou kill'st at his feet, yet doth he
Reserve but few, and leaves the most to thee.
And of those few, now thou hast overthrown
One whom thy blow makes, not ours, nor thine own.
She was more storeys high: hopeless to come
To her soul, thou hast offered at her lower room.
Her soul and body was a king and court:
But thou hast both of captain missed and fort.
As houses fall not, though the king remove,
Bodies of saints rest for their souls above.
Death gets 'twixt souls and bodies such a place
As sin insinuates 'twixt just men and grace,
Both work a separation, no divorce.
Her soul is gone to usher up her corse,
Which shall be almost another soul, for there
Bodies are purer, than best souls are here.
Because in her, her virtues did outgo
Her years, wouldst thou, O emulous death, do so?
And kill her young to thy loss? must the cost
Of beauty, and wit, apt to do harm, be lost?
What though thou found'st her proof 'gainst sins of youth?
Oh, every age a diverse sin pursueth.
Thou shouldst have stayed, and taken better hold,
Shortly ambitious, covetous, when old,
She might have proved: and such devotion
Might once have strayed to superstition.
If all her virtues must have grown, yet might
Abundant virtue have bred a proud delight.
Had she persevered just, there would have been
Some that would sin, mis-thinking she did sin.
Such as would call her friendship, love, and feign
To sociableness, a name profane;
Or sin, by tempting, or, not daring that,
By wishing, though they never told her what.
Thus mightst thou have slain more souls, hadst thou not crossed
Thyself, and to triumph, thine army lost.
Yet though these ways be lost, thou hast left one,
Which is, immoderate grief that she is gone.
But we may 'scape that sin, yet weep as much,
Our tears are due, because we are not such.
Some tears, that knot of friends, her death must cost,
Because the chain is broke, though no link lost.

~ John Donne

No Kings, No Traitors

NO KINGS PROTEST #3
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

"Readers should treat the “traitor” label
as a charged political and rhetorical claim in many sources
rather than as a uniformly substantiated legal fact. . . . "

That being said . . . you can buy this flag on amazon!

Ever one to shout out "Treason!" and call the kettle black,
Trump himself has been identified as a traitor many times.

For example,
as early as 2020 in this book by David Rothkopf

What would Cicero say?
NO KINGS!
On Traitors:"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the galleys, heard in the very hall of government itself.

"For the traitor appears not a traitor — he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and wears their face and their garment, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men.

"He rots the soul of a nation — he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city — he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared." ~Cicero in 42 B.C.E.

What would Supreme Court Justice
William O. Douglas say?
NO KINGS!
On Authority: “Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? The constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns, the state and federal officials only our agents. We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we need not stay docile and quiet… [A]t the constitutional level, speech need not be a sedative; it can be disruptive… [A] function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger.” ~Douglas in 1972

What would Tom Robbins say?
NO KINGS!
On Autonomy: "The only advice I have for you tonight is not to actively resist or fight the system, because active protest and resistance merely entangles you in the system. Instead, ignore it, walk away from it. Turn your backs on it, laugh at it.Don’t be outraged, be outrageous! Never be stupid enough to respect authority unless that authority proves itself respectable. So be your own authority, lead yourselves." ~ Robbins in 1974

What would John Adams say?
NO KINGS!
On the White House: "I Pray Heaven To Bestow The Best Of Blessings On This House And All that shall hereafter Inhabit it. May none but Honest and Wise Men ever rule under This Roof." ~Adams in 1800

Building the First White House
by N. C. Wyeth (1882 – 1945)
"The Case of the Missing White House"

"God said, I am tired of kings,
I suffer them no more . . . "
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

PREVIOUS NO KINGS POSTS
2026
February 16 for Presidents Day
QK: Presidents Not Kings

2025
October 18: 2nd NO KINGS PROTEST
QK: Factbase Roll Call
Facebook: In Chicago

July 3 for Indpendence Day
QK: Freedom Capital

July 14 & 15
FN: America, Give Me Strength
QK: America, Vast Confused Beauty

June 28 & 30
FN: Living With Dementia
QK:Living With Dementia

June 14: 1st NO KINGS PROTEST
FN: Fighting Fantasy
QK: No Kings Day

May 28
FN: The Gulf of Mexico and Beyond
QK: "A Very Much Different Country"

May 14
FN: "I Didn't Even Know Anything"
QK: "I Didn't Even Know Anything"

Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, April 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Ease Into the Conversation

CAROLYN'S TEAPOT
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

"The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink . . ."
~ David Whyte ~

Painting above & more by
~ Carolyn Rathbun George ~

Here's to re-connections!
With old friends and old poems!
Way back in the Philadelphia era, Carolyn was our neighbor, less than a block away! We shared dinners, parties, walks around the neighborhood, choir events and fundraisers on behalf of my kids, similar tastes in music, art, and historical architecture.

Influencing our vibe for years to come, it was Carolyn who introduced our family to the work of artist / poet Brian Andreas. I still remember going into Carolyn's little powder room on Pine Street and seeing the beautiful original wooden StoryPerson hanging on the wall! It was also thanks to Carolyn that we discovered Primal Elements soap, especially the Christmas Tree Light design, which I have loved ever since! That was certainly an iconic visit to the Powder Room! You just never know where treasures may lurk! And that includes old friends themselves, for it turns out that after all these years, Carolyn is once again our neighbor! Okay, across town instead of just down the block, but that's alright.

As for poetic re-connections, I owe the remainder of this post [see previous comment] to my friend Katie, who put me in touch with yet another perception - shattering poem from David Whyte.

Kitti: In my "notes to self" after our call last night, I had hastily scribbled down "Irish poem." Now, this morning, I can’t recall what I meant by that! Any ideas?

Katie: I was supposed to send you a link to an Irish poem that I remembered hearing and reading a couple of years ago, but I can’t find it! If I find it, I’ll send it over. It’s in the spirit of Hirschman, Merwin, and Pastan.

A few days later . . .

Katie: Here is the poem by the Irish poet I was trying to remember last week! It was just quoted in a little essay in today’s print edition of The New York Times! Can you believe it?!

After our conversation, I tried googling "Irish Poet" with some of the images I remembered from the poem, and of course there are hundreds of Irish poets, maybe thousands!

But now, the Monday before Thanksgiving, his poem appeared in a lovely little essay, "Tuning In: put down the headphones, and tune back in" (part of "the morning" newsletter).

Maybe you already know this poet? If you don’t, enjoy! And if you do, enjoy rereading!

Kitti: Amazing! I’ve read a few things by Whyte before, but never this one! And how incredible — your unexpected path towards rediscovering it!

Katie: I’m so glad you enjoyed the poem, and I’m so glad I found my way back to that poem again, or it found its way back to me.

It was waiting for us!

Everything is Waiting for You

After Derek Mahon

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.
[emphasis added]

by David Whyte (b 1955)

Untitled Tea Scene
by Henri Matisse (1869-1954)
Additional Matisse paintings: QK & FN

Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, March 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Burning the Letters

UP IN SMOKE
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

Woman Burning Love Letters: Retrospection (c. 1840)
by Alfred Chantrey Corbould (1852-1920)

Totally living up to the watchwords of "connection and coincidence," this blogpost got its start a few days ago when Brian Bilston posted his list of "Discarded First Lines," reminding me, in turn, of Gregory Corso's list of "Saleable Titles." I knew I had saved some Corso poems in one of my college notebooks, so I pulled it off the shelf and was thumbing through . . .

found the Corso . . .

and, wait, what?!
. . . this poem that has been on my search list
for the last 7 or 8 years!

Back in 2018, I wrote to a few
of my classmates from college days:

Dear Deanna, Milly, and Ruth,

I am trying to track down a poem that Herman Wilson gave us years ago to analyze -- it was called "Burning the Letters," and I could swear that the poet's name was "Kiligrew" or something like that. But no matter how I google it, nothing along those lines turns up, and I can't find it in any of my old books / papers. Any ideas?

If only Herman were still with us, I bet he would know it right off the top of his head! Alas . . .

Was I thinking of Sylvia Plath's poem -- also entitled "Burning the Letters"? Possibly. Yet, the name "Kiligrew" felt more like it to me. Could I have merged the two poems / poets in my mind because they were on the same page or we studied them at the same time? It wouldn't be the first time for such a mix-up in my head.

But at long last, thanks to Bilston and Corso, the mystery has been solved! It wasn't Plath, nor was it Kiligrew. It was Grew -- Gwendolyn Grew! Now, if only I could learn something more about this poet. If anyone has any information on Gwendolyn Grew, please let me know!

Burning the Letters

One flutter of memory, then all becomes
First blaze, then char. A Fall of after-thought,
And leaf by leaf, a slant wind numbs
Summer from the bone-tree. ’’Nothing is not

Something,” she thinks. And it is nothing now
To send a season blazing. Day by day
What greened, a sun-machine upon its bough,
Unsuns, ungreens, discolors toward decay.

Up from the bed now she can see the pale
Last glow of paper X-rayed by the bright
Underglow of the flame. A becalmed sail
It stirs, uncertain. Then it bursts a-light.

Like leaf-veins, the black lines stand in relief
As fire travels them clean. Then a black bloat
Riffles the page. Footless as a night-thief
The fire draft stirs them then, sets them afloat

And sucks them up to darkness, each a bat.
Till the last line has swollen and gone out
With its black mouse-bird. “How long have | sat
Here in self-pity?” she begins to doubt.

And still she kneels, and with a poker stirs
A last bird from the blaze, loving its flight.
Nursing the not-much hurt. But it is hers,
And nurse it she will through one more acted night.

By Gwendolyn Grew
Anthologized in How Does a Poem Mean
Edited by John Ciardi & Miller Williams

Postcard #817 ~ Sherie Series
By Inter-Art Co., Southampton House, London

And it seems only fair to conclude
with Plath's poem for comparison:

Burning The Letters

I made a fire; being tired
Of the white fists of old
Letters and their death rattle
When I came too close to the wastebasket
What did they know that I didn't?
Grain by grain, they unrolled
Sands where a dream of clear water
Grinned like a getaway car.
I am not subtle
Love, love, and well, I was tired
Of cardboard cartons the color of cement or a dog pack
Holding in it's hate
Dully, under a pack of men in red jackets,
And the eyes and times of the postmarks.

This fire may lick and fawn, but it is merciless:
A glass case
My fingers would enter although
They melt and sag, they are told
Do not touch.
And here is an end to the writing,
The spry hooks that bend and cringe and the smiles, the smiles
And at least it will be a good place now, the attic.
At least I won't be strung just under the surface,
Dumb fish
With one tin eye,
Watching for glints,
Riding my Arctic
Between this wish and that wish.

So, I poke at the carbon birds in my housedress.
They are more beautiful than my bodiless owl,
They console me—
Rising and flying, but blinded.
They would flutter off, black and glittering, they would be coal angels
Only they have nothing to say but anybody.
I have seen to that.
With the butt of a rake
I flake up papers that breathe like people,
I fan them out
Between the yellow lettuces and the German cabbage
Involved in it's weird blue dreams
Involved in a foetus.
And a name with black edges

Wilts at my foot,
Sinuous orchis
In a nest of root-hairs and boredom—
Pale eyes, patent-leather gutturals!
Warm rain greases my hair, extinguishes nothing.
My veins glow like trees.
The dogs are tearing a fox. This is what it is like
A read burst and a cry
That splits from it's ripped bag and does not stop
With that dead eye
And the stuffed expression, but goes on
Dyeing the air,
Telling the particles of the clouds, the leaves, the water
What immortality is. That it is immortal.

By Sylvia Plath (1932 – 1963)
More on FN & QK

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