The Death of Helen Burns

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.

The Honorable Rev. Brocklehurst

I'm continuing my work of writing poems inspired by my rereading of Jane Eyre.  Brocklehurst seemed one-dimensional to my younger eyes, but this time around some of the details of his character were a little more chilling - his fixation on the girls' stockings and hair.  Inspired by my LOFT Poetry Out Loud class, I tried to write a poem from a perspective other than Jane's own.  This was an attempt to get into the man's head - perhaps voice his side of the tale.  Many of the details are from the book - Jane herself notices Maria Brocklehurst's name on Lowood's front edifice on her very first day at school.

 

The Honorable Rev. Brocklehurst

they are so little these girls

they cannot see

but I watch them.

I take their cares to my breast.

my own mother

was always leaving.

I brought her the coat

and she took it from my hand

and didn’t notice

the difference

between her son and the man

she paid

only coppers.

she left her name on silver trays

on buildings

on men.

I took the coins

I bought them needles

and bid them be handed out

only one by one

that they might remember.

I remember

my mother’s curls,

my mother’s laugh,

the maid who did not

darn the stockings

and the blows that fell.

she was the first girl I

ever kissed

she laughed and squirmed

- a little thing.

I watched her fall

beneath the blows.

my mother didn’t notice her son

or the man.

resurgam

should it matter

that you are here

a church yard stone

does it matter who

unmade me

or that I was unmade

the stream

the low ground

our bare feet left there

impressions

filled with water

they did not last

there were white stones

no bridges

in crossing them

our feet

stained them black