It is not love, but loss
Which moves us - love fears all change -
And loss proves us human, creative,
Because we create not out
_of our inner resources, but out
_of that which we know absent within us.
Rachel, I see you hugging tightly your happiness
A smile light as gloss on your lips -
And the light in your eyes which I've always loved.
I love you enough to wish you well,
And I hereby announce my intention to lose you forever:
Editor's Note: Kit Carsson wrote this, the last of her poems,
in an unheated cabin in Wisconsin on New Year's Eve, 2009.
(Or at least so she dated it. She could be given to dramatic
gestures.) Five weeks later she was dead from a recurrence of
the cancer which she suspected but did not confirm, because of
her decision to forego any further treatment. She was 43 at
the time.
As one of her closest friends, she shared this website
with me. She asked me not to publicize it as long as
Leah, her longtime companion, lives. She left the decision
of whether to publish this last poem, and indeed whether to
keep the site up at all to me, as her "literary executor."
I have decided to publish this poem, one of her loveliest
and most troubling, and to keep this site up as a gesture
towards a legacy for a prolific but frustrated artist who
died wondering if any of her work would survive her,
and had decided, no probably not.
I may continue to post her work here if I find
something in her journals or papers which I think
appropriate to this site.
This she gave me permission to do.
I think it would be best for everyone to consider
this site as a work of fiction, telling the story of
a hopeless love, rather than a collection of poetry.
Kit Carsson did not write these. as a poet writes -
with the perfection of the writing in mind.
Instead they were meant to tell the story
of a heart as simply and with as much impact
as possible to another human heart. That
she never showed these posts to that one
particular human heart which meant most
to her is neither here nor there.
If there were some way to flip the posts so that the
site read backward, I would do it. You may
want to take read them that way, reading the
oldest one first and working your way back
to her final posting, the poem above,
It Is Loss, Not Love.
- HM
Leah, if you come across this site, please forgive Kit,
both for disappointing you and for publishing these
unvarnished fragments of her heart. I truly believe
she published them to save her relationship with you.
On the other hand, you need not forgive me. If
I never wished you any particular harm, I always
valued Kit's art above her love to you; and in the end
I see that is - to the lover, at least - unforgivable.
-
