no amount of time
can change me
when I think of you
I feel my heart in my chest
like a wounded animal
it staggers
it cries blood and
heaves viscera
I am no huntsman
you know my tiny hands
I cannot give it rest
I'm struck as I reread this passage in Jane Eyre by Bronte's focus on the outdoor world. She describes a young Jane set free across the wild moors from dawn until sundown, while the whole school is consumed with sickness. The wild flowers, the river, the sky, the low mountains - all are described beautifully. Only as complete blackness descends does Jane finally enter the house. Jane tarries the longest outdoors - sending companions away, staying in the garden to plant some roots by moonlight. She is reluctant - one senses even Bronte as the writer is reluctant - to enter the sickness and to confront Helen's death. I wrote this poem thinking about Helen. But I was also thinking about how any love poem I write from Jane's childhood would reverberate through the years to also encompass Jane's relationship with Rochester - which also features a staggering loss.
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