Part Of Loving Is Knowing That Nothing Lasts

Finding the (eternal) beauty and joy within aloneness and transience.

What is sentimentality? The great modern American poem, ‘A Blessing’ by James Wright, now studied in most MFA programs, pushes itself to the brink of mawkish sap. In the poem, the narrator and his friend visit two ponies who joyfully come over to them, and there is ‘happiness’ and ‘love’ and blessings. However, the poem defies sentimentality, and in fact, dark undercurrents bubble under the surface.  

Here is the poem: 

A Blessing

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,

Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies

Darken with kindness.

They have come gladly out of the willows

To welcome my friend and me.

We step over the barbed wire into the pasture

Where they have been grazing all day, alone.

They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness   

That we have come.

They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.

There is no loneliness like theirs.   

At home once more,

They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.   

I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,

For she has walked over to me   

And nuzzled my left hand.   

She is black and white,

Her mane falls wild on her forehead,

And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear

That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.

Suddenly I realize

That if I stepped out of my body I would break

Into blossom.

Sentimentality seems to reign supreme with at least four over-the-top lines including ‘they can hardly contain their happiness’ and especially ‘they love each other’.  Normally, these types of lines would be banned from poetry! They seem to say too much, they are abstract, overly emotional in their language, and impossible to believe. It’s unlikely that ponies ‘can’t contain’ what Wright calls ‘happiness’. 

Hyperbolic and self-indulgent sentimentality doesn’t belong in poetry because, by definition, it is a sweetness that lacks depth, and poems are multi-layered. But why and how does sentimentality work—what’s wrong with describing just feeling very happy? I believe that the reason why sentimentality lacks depth is because it hides truths. It pretends and pushes down something real, somber, or painful.

Just when Wright’s poem finds itself on the edge of full-blown sap, the poem is saved: language and lines appear that don’t pretend, that don’t push down. In fact, the central line that holds the whole poem up not only exposes what’s underneath the happiness and love but expresses the opposite of everything the poet seems to be saying. 

The crucial beam that supports the poem is the line: ‘There is no loneliness like theirs’. The line comes as a shock. It’s counterintuitive. How can the same creatures who so ‘gladly’ come, who are so filled with happiness and love can also be filled with an unmatched loneliness? 

Wright seems to suggest here that we are all lonely. Every person, every creature, each one of us is alone. No matter how connected we are to others, we are each one solitary being. And even as the poem highlights connection (no one is alone in this poem -- the speaker has a friend with him, and the ponies have each other, and two groups bond) an inexplicable loneliness permeates.  

Alone-ness is a basic element of the human condition. And declaring the loneliness of the ponies (and by extension himself and his friend) after the exuberant outpourings about love and happiness, the narrator is highlighting the fact that we are ultimately alone on another level. We will die or those we love will die before us. Everything will be lost to us eventually: the highway, the friend, grass, ponies, willows. All, except perhaps, love itself.

Image: sakalam.in

In the essay ‘On Transience’, Freud describes his young ‘taciturn friend’, a poet actually, melancholy and troubled, tormented by the fact that everything beautiful – nature, the people he loves, and all that he admires – fades away eventually. Freud tries to help his friend by saying that there is a richness in the love we have for the things and people we care about and deeply admire because everything will fade away. 

Nothing, (at least nothing material) lasts and intuitively knowing that is a part of loving. Think of the Greek gods – they were immortal, and their lives were shallow and petty. Transience gives life and connection depth. Joy and sadness are intertwined. Wright’s poem seems to understand this which is why he can’t mention ‘happiness’ without ‘loneliness’.

And even earlier in the poem, there are hints of sadness: why do the eyes of the ponies ‘darken’ and why does Wright mention that the ponies are ‘alone’ even while together. The subliminal message is that sadness runs like a current under the beauty of the earth, and this sadness enters the bones of all creatures no matter how glad, connected, and happy.

This idea about the marriage of sadness and happiness, simmering inside the poem, bursts in the poem’s last lines: ‘Suddenly I realize / That if I stepped out of my body I would break / Into blossom.’ It’s an ecstatic ending, an epiphany, almost religious, filled with rapture. However, if we look closely, the language is saying more than describing an experience of joy. Why does Wright mention stepping out of his ‘body’ and why does he use the word ‘break’? Stepping out of one’s body usually denotes the soul leaving the body or dying. And Wright imagines himself breaking, falling apart. This reminds me of Emily Dickinson’s poem which begins, 

I can wade Grief -
Whole Pools of it -
I'm used to that -
But the least push of Joy
Breaks up my feet -
And I tip - drunken -

Dickinson’s narrator also ‘breaks’ from happiness. Ironically, grief can be easier to bear than joy. How can we bear joy when we know (it's the only thing we know) that all will be lost? However, allowing ourselves to attach to the things of this world while knowing the truth about what will happen may allow us to 'blossom' like a flower: open, growing, beautiful.