Maude Uschold - Departure (1926)

Forgotten Poems #39

—: Departure :—

 
       Let me go, not slowly
       As one smothers in a cavern,
       Waiting doom
       Like the sad slow creeping
       Of northern dawn;
       But let me drop quickly
       Like tropic night,
       Like one breathless backward
       Step from a cliff.
 

Uschold, Maude (p. 1926-35, etc.)
P: Contemporary Verse (1926), The Leader (1926), The Midland (1930), The Dothan Eagle (1934), etc.

“A journalist in Lacon, Illinois.” (New Mexico Quarterly, 1935) Also a painter; “Maude Uschold, of this city, has some water color paintings on exhibition. Miss Uschold has more than ordinary talent and here's hoping that she may win the prize.” (The Lacon Home Journal, 1921)

So it’s Sunday, and that means Forgotten Poems day! This is the only poem I have been able to find by Uschold in the public domain, and while she clearly continued to publish poetry into the 1930s, she seems to have switched to rhymed, rather than free forms. As always, after reading and re-reading Uschold a few times, and sitting in the depths of her images, I waited patiently, and finally something came . . .

 
     For Maude Uschold & John Cage
                        (by Dick Whyte)

     when death is ready
     to take me
     i will laugh too,
     loud and long:
     not because i am ready to go—

     (i will never be ready to go!)

          moon,
     will you be my guide?
     with your old light
     blanket?

     (i will never be ready to go!)

     stars too,
     with a glow so ancient
     it sings

     (i will never be ready to go!)

     in the belly of time
     laughter is always

     (i will never be ready to go!)

     preferable to tears
 
 

NOTE: the final lines reference an interview and performance John Cage gave on television in January, 1960 which has always stayed with me—his presence is so gentle and loving, and has been an endless source of inspiration to me in my own approach to poetry/life.

“I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry as I need it.” (John Cage)

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