Book by Dorothy Chasie
(Available on Amazon.com)
This is not a book review as reviews go. It is a difficult book to read. It is a book just as hard to put away. The vulnerability of the young permeates it. Yes it is painful to read, and particularly in this month that the Angamis call the dark month, Kezeiu khrii, it brings up all that February is symbolic of, death and loss. The twenty poems of varying length are dedicated to the mysterious Blue, a dearly beloved friend. The sub title of the volume is ‘On Loss, Love, and the Life After.’
Loss first, deep heart-wounding loss. Dedicated to Blue – friend, confidante and safe place. The reader is allowed into that inner territory of the heart to witness undisguised pain and missing. It is such an act of courage to open that space to another: ‘When the morning rose/it failed to raise you/It let your spirit/lie still/between the sheets.’
Dorothy offers this poignant title ‘Stranger to your own heart breaking’ to the poem in the second section called ‘Condemning the Silence.’ The poem is almost an out-of-body experience. ‘What do you do/ when you are a stranger to/your own heart/ breaking/ A by-stander/watching the slightest graze/from the now ignorant breeze/swat the last cords/dead vines clump off./What can you say to the dark juices/wrung out and oozing/from the remaining pulp (if you can call it that) shrivelled and shining/frothy and festering/ I am/the silent jailer to the spectacle/Conspirer and victim/to the brutality of Experience/at the hands of Time.
The sense of detachment from what is currently going on, is complete. It is like an exercise in survival. When the grief becomes too much to bear, step out of your body and be an observer untouched by it all, simply observe and document the moment. That is how poetry is born. That is also how healing can begin. But it is a long, long journey. ‘Self-Retribution’ is part of that long journey – ‘No heart beats true/no more, at least;/ mine had died with you/ Beat for beat/But still not enough/ My heart I kill for one now slack.’ The guilt comes from this – ‘A Funeral Unmet.’ ‘Guilt’ she writes, ‘as heavy as keys/That sunk to the sea floor/While the blind roam sand storms./ I,/Failed you./To see your last face/ Spared you no last farewells/You,/I ached/At the thought of you/Alone in wood and nails alone/But/If not for your brother/who saved us with a remembered rosary.’
What can be more painful than a young heart in pain? Dorothy expresses the hurting so well and dares to explore the dimensions of pain coming as it does from guilt and self-recrimination. Missing out on a last farewell is one, missing the funeral is another that makes forgiving the self almost impossible. All these self-accusations drive the pain deeper.
In the third section, ‘A deeper shade than Blue’ there is bleakness but a little beauty also surfaces, even if reluctantly. The beauty of poetic thoughts recaptured. ‘Empty bus seats/Silent chairs/Walks alone/Raindrops sang no tunes/I was missing you/Even before you left.’ The same feeling pervades the next poem, ‘Lakeside reflections’ – ‘I sat by dark waters/ready to sink, not swim/No stars left to see me cry/I could have easily died and let live/But the choice was not yours/ It was neither mine/Then why, oh why/Does it still feel like it was?’ Beautiful. The grieving is almost palpable.
Definitely the poem titled ‘Darkest Blue’ is the one hitting rock bottom. ‘I crouch over myself(I dig deep and scratch/ At all the things that hid from the light/ and sat in the dark. / I know you send/Blue skies and orange sunsets/ To remind me of Peachy and Blue/But now, more often than not/ I’d rather look at the dark.’ In the face of loss, there are no words that can ease pain, erase suffering and rewind death.
Section 4 ‘Revival from a Requiem’ shows tinges of hope. I especially like the last poem, ‘With all things said and done.’ ‘Even in this desolation/ They say He is there/Where two or three are gathered/And I know that you are there/ With me/Every time I pray alone/ He must be listening then/ I am content in my solitary faith/Because I know you too well/You can do no less than bend His ear to me/ You can do no less.’ Turning away from the despair of the utterly bereaved to embrace a hope of meeting again in another dimension, and the faith that the beloved, who is now beyond the obstacles of flesh, can hear us and can communicate with us is a faith that can promise healing. This is a beautiful and very worthy tribute to Love.
