That Monstrous Shadow

I have decided I will share at least some original poetry here, and why not dive in at the deep end. Poem first, and then I have provided some personal context and two bits of boring explanation.

That Monstrous Shadow

My giant goes with me where’er I go
No church or sanctum keeps me from his might
That monstrous shadow darkens all I know

Through gentle spring and raging winter snow
To island idyll, lofty mountain height
My giant goes with me where’er I go

The finest speech or wine that e’er did flow
The Muses’ sweetest songs and brightest light
That restless shadow darkens all I know

I wander ancient sites, walk to and fro
Through dazzling light and every sacred sight
My giant goes with me where’er I go

All worldly wealth and sons and daughters glow
And lover’s lips and loving arms each night
That haunting shadow darkens all I know

Would that some David stood before this foe,
Stood on this cross amidst this giant’s fight
Alas my giant goes where’er I go
His giant shadow darkens all I know

Oct-Nov 2019

PERSONAL CONTEXT:

Last year I went through what I have come to think of as my Six Dark Weeks (or maybe a little longer) during which I would probably have been described as depressed. This seems to have been something of a culmination of a longer time, maybe a few years, of generally sitting a bit below a healthy average, although up and down and mostly well within what I would have considered the normal range of life’s ebbs and flows. The SDW was unlike any previous experience for me, unrelenting and way below the healthy range.

The poem is an attempt to express the relentlessness.

(Quick disclaimer: The Dark Patch ended many months ago, I am currently happy and well, and the forecast is all sunny. I don’t take anything for granted but feel quite fortunate that it only lasted a few weeks and that I’ve managed to be brought back out of it so well. I know that many people are not so fortunate in their experience.)

TWO BITS OF EXPLANATION:

One: The opening line is taken from an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson. One passage argues that travel to exotic locales does not relieve one of his underlying sadness. If someone is sad, this “giant” will accompany him anywhere, whatever amusing diversions or novel excitements he may find. This idea is what inspired not only that line but the whole poem. (I did read the essay, “Self-Reliance“, which does not come recommended, a few insightful moments notwithstanding. The line in its context was quoted in another article which does come recommended, lack of brevity notwithstanding. This is where I read it and the seed was planted.)

Two: The poem is a villanelle, which has quite an odd feel to a newcomer (so I believe; it did to me, certainly). I had just learned about the form (had never heard the word before) when I struck upon the Emerson quote (the poem unfolded over the next six weeks or so). The fairly strict form requires 19 lines in 6 stanzas in an ABA rhyme scheme with two alternately repeated refrains. (Precise details are found in the Wikipedia article. A famous example is the Dylan Thomas poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Goodnight”.) It is apparently regarded as a suitable form for dealing with topics of obsession or giving a sense of dislocation, and struck me as appropriate to express a feeling of pressing and inescapable inner turmoil.