On my drive home after my last visit to my mother before she died, I drifted off the interstate at the New York, Massachusetts border and searched for a small town restaurant. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d consumed my cooler food and I needed good eats and maybe some company. Since New Lebanon and Austerlitz, NY, were on opposite sides of the highway, I knew I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d find a white clapboard house with a Home Cooking sign in the window. I was wrong. But I did discover a commemorative plaque describing Edna St. Vincent Millay\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s last home.<\/p>\n
After my mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s memorial service in July, I decided to stop again. Not for food, I knew there wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t any, but to see Edna\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s place. I felt this connection between my mother and Edna. Both were strong, spirited, outspoken women. This time, with Diane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mapquest help, I found Edna\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s house, but for some unknown reason I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t force myself by all the KEEP-OUT, NO TRESPASSING signs.<\/p>\n
After I visited my father in December, I stopped again, and this time I walked right by those stupid signs. I made a little movie of her property, overlaying Edna reading \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I Shall Forget You Presently.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The words don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fit the film, but it was the best of the three audio poems I found. <\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the movie is a bigger mishmash than my spinning daisy effort. I should have taken photographs. <\/p>\n
Video<\/a><\/p>\n I Dreamed I Moved Among The Elysian Fields<\/p>\n I dreamed I moved among the Elysian fields, On my drive home after my last visit to my mother before she died, I drifted off the interstate at the New York, Massachusetts border and searched for a small town restaurant. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d consumed my cooler food and I needed … Continue reading
\nIn converse with sweet women long since dead;
\nAnd out of blossoms which that meadow yields
\nI wove a garland for your living head.
\nDanai, that was the vessel for a day
\nOf golden Jove, I saw, and at her side,
\nWhom Jove the Bull desired and bore away,
\nEuropa stood, and the Swan’s featherless bride.
\nAll these were mortal women, yet all these
\nAbove the ground had had a god for guest;
\nFreely I walked beside them and at ease,
\nAddressing them, by them again addressed,
\nAnd marvelled nothing, for remembering you,
\nWherefore I was among them well I knew.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"