Elegy for Myself
by Stanley Moss
(published in Poetry, OCT/NOV 1987)
The ashes and dust are laughing, swaddled,
perfumed and powdered, laughing at the flowers,
the mirrors they brought to check his breath,
—and he no longer singular.
Who will carry his dust home in merriment?
These things need a pillow, a clay pot, a wife,
a dog, a friend. Plural now he is all the mourners
of his father’s house, and all the nights and mornings too.
Place him with “they love” and “they wrote,”
not he loves and he writes. It took so much pain
for those Ss to fly off. It took so much trouble
to need a new part of speech. Now he is
something like a good small company of actors,
the text, not scripture, begins “I am laughing.”
This poem seems fitting, as the great poet Stanley Moss died earlier this month. I fear he is not as well-known or read as much as other 20th century poets; it is ironic, because many of those poets who are being read, studied, and honored by younger generations would have said that Moss was their mentor, their inspiration, and/or one of their favorite poets.
It is easy to see why he was (and is) much admired--just say the first two lines out loud. Relish those sounds! The small details in this poem mixed effortlessly with concepts such as the dead becoming plural and the idea of the pain that goes into survivors' language. But the ending provides so much comfort--the dead speaker tells us that he is laughing.
I hope, after he died at 99 on July 5, that Stanley Moss was indeed laughing.
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