Then by Muriel Rukeyser

When I am dead, even then,
I will still love you, I will wait in these poems,
When I am dead, even then,
I am still listening to you.
I will still be making poems for you
out of silence;
silence will be falling into that silence,
it is building music.

***

It is spring now, and I've spent hours lying on the hill, basking in the sun. I avoid work because it is the only way to greet the change of seasons. Sometimes I am happy, sometimes I am inexplicably sad, sometimes delirious (quite literally), sometimes I am just sitting on my bed listening to kids screaming in the square downstairs, reading a magazine filled with pretty girls and pretty clothes.

Now I write more for the school newspaper, find myself falling in love with just having a wonderful conversation with someone interesting, and taking their story to our small school. I make plans to go to theme parks and go dipping in ponds that never materialize, I listen to the Decemberists on benches flanked by greening trees.

I stay awake at night thinking about my summer in the city, and all the things that I might do, the streets I might walk down, the food I might consume. I go dizzy with excitement at the thought of it all, as well as the thought of seeing my boy in the summer in person, instead of just over a webcam. I plot happiness in the form of picnics in the park, gelato dripping down my hands because I can't eat it too fast, sample sales full of buttery soft bags and frothy dresses. And then I think of the end of summer, when I get to be home and see all these people I so dearly love, more so, I think, than so many other people in the world. I want to start writing again, writing proper journal entries, proper anything entries, real poetry. I want to play the guitar, whip up excellent dishes, and watch a lot of Food Network with Brendan in our summer sublet.

Next year I will be living on a tree-lined street with 4 other girls, we have a covered porch, a little grassy area of our own, a large common room and kitchen, and all these things we are so lucky to have in our school. I won't have anymore poetry classes, however, which makes me indescribably sad, especially after my class today, where all we did was talk about Rukeyser and feminism and poetry and New York in the 70s and I was moved in the way that only poetry has ever and can ever move me - today, yesterday and forever.

My heart fills.