Apologies to William Cowper

My most heartfelt apologies to William Cowper.  I had memorized the entire poem, "The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk" for eighth grade and it has never left my mind.  I admit my insomnia got the better of me late, very late, okay, really late last night and I had had two glasses of wine with some cheese and crackers.  Not in the cool European style.  I was eating Wheat Thins and that sharp cheddar you spray from a can.  And I was lit, not Hollywood lit where a sorrowful woman can look hauntingly beautiful.  I was lit by the harsh glow of my computer screen.  And the only haunting was my sadness that pounded at me with the choppy waves of an incoming storm.

So I wrote.  I worked on my book which has been so very cathartic.  It's a violent, cruel book and I'm sending everyone in it, with the exception of two people, to Hell.  But even that didn't touch my anguish.  So I started taking W. Cowper's beautiful poem and I changed it.  It became my lament at 3:30 AM - boy that really was late, or early, my mind is off center.  The only reason I'm awake now is the woman who wants three  -   count'em 3  =o)   - quilts is coming over at 10 this morning to discuss design.  The way I feel right now, it will be a crazy quilt.  I need a shower and some hot tea.

But here is my lamet of last night offered up to the world to view.  Again, Mr. Cowper, I am so sorry of altering so much of your beautiful poem.  There are a few lines that remain but most of it is unrecognizable.

*takes a brief bow*

"The Late Night Ravings of womanNshadows

by womanNshadows with credit given to William Cowper and Sutter Home White Zinfandel

I am monarch of all I survey;

Though my reign can come under dispute;

If I don’t come up with my rent money soon

My dire situation could become acute.

At this moment the worry is moot.

O Solitude! I see none of your charms

That sages have seen in thy face.

I wish I felt none of the pain that I feel,

And my husband could come live in this place.

 

I am within humanity's reach;

But I spend so much time alone;

Never again to hear his voice again

As I try to ignore my own;

My two little dogs roam around me here but

It’s his form that they’d like to see —

They miss him as much as I do and so

Sadness is shared between three.

 

Longing, crying, and living alone

I oft times beg the dear Lord above,

Please let me have him for just one more day

And we’ll crowd in a lifetime of love.

But my pleas fall back down around me and

My heart falls back down in the abyss.

I’m not living in a Mitch Albom book,

So I have to write my own ending to this.

 

His love was a love that was the stuff of dreams,

That he was mine was a mystery;

But because of some weird twist of fate

Some deity gave him to me.

No one could believe the two of us

The reclusive artist and the gregarious Marine

But let me give you some insight to us,

He was my dragon fierce and he treated me like his queen.

 

He took care of me and brought me out of my shell,

From shadows that I’d lived in for years,

He taught me how to stand up for myself and to laugh

But now the laughter has turned to tears.

Angels stole into our room one night and stole his life from me.

Stole is the operative word for those thieves took my world from me.

I sat beside his body so still in a sterile room so white

And I asked them, “Why?   Why take him?

You didn’t even give him a chance to fight.”

There was no answer for there is none to be found

That can explain why they took him from me.

So here I sit in the darkness again with such sadness to bear,

For a soul mate I can no longer touch or see.

There's should be mercy in every place;

But mercy—for the grief-stricken me, I think not—

My heart can find no solace these days so

I must reconcile myself to my lot.

I know I could have gone on and on, wine and spray cheese have that effect on me.  But I think by the end there I could no longer see the computer screen for the tears.  It was like trying to drive through a rainstorm with really bad windshield wipers.  Like it used to say, (oh, Lord, has another technology bitten the dust - videocassettes?  I still have videocassettes.  Course I also still have a handful of old 8-tracks.) but it used to say "Please be kind.  Please rewind."  If you leave a comment, think of this.  "When you review.  Consider the view.  Wine, spray cheese, and 8th grade poetry recitations might not mix."

*takes an embarrassed bow*

*gets up and walks away from the screen*