Thank you for explaining the reference to Elijah. My biblical knowledge doesn't go past the Sunday readings and the popular bits that were given to Sunday School children. It's really important to the poem and I didn't get it, though I liked the poem anyway.
This is a heartbreaking poem for me. This summer our nephew was married, on a summer hillside overlooking the English Channel. Joyous wedding, and the next day many of us spent the day relaxing at the beach together. Three weeks later he was killed by a car driver while he and his bride were biking. I think back more often to that sweet beach day than the wedding...and thank God that we can never foretell the future.
Thank you for explaining the reference to Elijah. My biblical knowledge doesn't go past the Sunday readings and the popular bits that were given to Sunday School children. It's really important to the poem and I didn't get it, though I liked the poem anyway.
Forgive me. . . I'm reminded, I hope not too narcissistically, of one of my own:
A Day at the Beach
In the Year of Our Divorce
Brassieres and books on bike repair,
linens and coats and boots. A suit!
Jellies and jams, a teddy bear!
Atlas and map (we’d lost the route).
We marked our boxes ‘yours’ and ‘mine,’
and sent them, separately, of course.
We cleaned out thirty years of grime,
then took a day off from divorce.
I’m happy to recall that day.
The beach was placid, unpretentious.
Unlike divorce— preposterous—
the beach was calm and ordinary.
Zara Raab
Even Janus had some views, whether past or future, that were more compelling and preferred.
This is a heartbreaking poem for me. This summer our nephew was married, on a summer hillside overlooking the English Channel. Joyous wedding, and the next day many of us spent the day relaxing at the beach together. Three weeks later he was killed by a car driver while he and his bride were biking. I think back more often to that sweet beach day than the wedding...and thank God that we can never foretell the future.
I am so sorry for your loss. What a bittersweet memory!
Oh, I'm so very sorry for that cruel loss, on the heels of joy.