Echoes from Eternity: 28. Jane Kenyon has it out with Melancholy

It feels relentless. We are in the 8th week of our family’s experience of Lockdown/Quarantine and while there are hints of change, there is nothing firm. Just hopes and aspirations. Because the truth is, nobody really knows what is going to happen. Never before has this generation of human beings (in the west at any rate) had to face its own powerlessness and frailty.

So as I know all too well, there are inevitably going to be seriously detrimental effects on people’s well-being and mental equilibrium.

So I’ve turned to Jane Kenyon, an American poet who died almost exactly 25 years ago from Leukemia. She knew what it was like to live in the cave. And she could put it into words like few others. So here is a longer poem trying to capture that experience. Coupled with a short poem of hope.