in which a poem surfaces decades after it was first worked on

so, forgive the lack of posting this week. a cold hit my house like a hurricane, and we have all been struggling to find dry land.

i was intrigued when i found out yesterday that drafts of ted hughes' much-revised and altered poem about his wife, sylvia plath's, suicide, entitled "last letter." i am a bit of a closet poetry junkie who, once upon a time, used to scribble my own on pretty much every little scrap of paper i could get my hands on. and honestly - are there any teen girls who didn't indulge in plath poems? anyway, rocked by his wife's death in 1963, hughes didn't talk about it until shortly before his own death in 1998. these have only come to light recently.

so, so sad and brilliant with its word use (can you say you're surprised, though? he was a poet laureate after all). a few snippets (via the washington post and the la times):

What did happen that Sunday night?
Your last night? Over what I remember of it
Double-exposed to my last sight of you
Burning your farewell letter to me
As if you had not meant it
Yet with that strange smile. As if you had meant
Something different
Had it reached me sooner than you planned?
Had you thought out a plan?

* * *

... If it had reached me
Saturday morning as it should have - by then
You would have vanished from me. You would have vanished
From behind those simple loving words
Of your farewell note...

* * *

What happened that night, inside your ... (unlegible)
Is as unknown as if it never happened.
What accumulation of your whole life,
Like effort unconscious, like birth
Pushing through each slow second into the next
Happened only as if it could not happen
As if it was not happening.

* * *

And I had started to write when the telephone
Jerked awake, in a jabbering alarm,
Remembering everything. It recovered in my hand.
Then a voice like a selected weapon
Or a measured injection,
Coolly delivered its four words
Deep into my ear: "Your wife is dead."

the imagery in that last stanza is beyond powerful.

when i read these, i was instantly reminded of a song i've adored for a number of years now. family affair, by abra moore, is so bittersweetly heart wrenching. it's quiet, simple, and powerful.

i sleep all day - what makes me feel this way?
when everything's a bust, when everything keeps loosing my trust.
where do we begin with this unhappy ending?
where do we begin after all that we've done?
how do we begin to say "i forgive you?"
and how do we begin to repair this family affair?
i think about the never ending way that my day never seems to want to end
i think about the loneliness of loosing a friend.
don't take it away from me
don't take away the one love that matters.
and i'll get well, you'll see.
you're all i have, you're my family.
is there ever enough love, ever enough?
where do we begin picking up the pieces?
where do we begin after all that's been said?
and how do we begin to say, "i still love you?"
and how do we begin to repair this family affair?
don't take it away from me
don't take away the one love that matters.
and we'll get well, you'll see
we're all we have, we're family, family.
where do we begin?

(mp3) family affair by abra moore