The Far Field poem meaning tagged posts

On Not Fearing Infinity: Theodore Roethke’s “The Far Field”

There come times in every life when we turn a corner. Big notable birthdays, graduations, jobs. Recoveries from accidents, addictions, illness, broken relationships. Blinding insights into Where We Have Erred and What We Must Do.

Significant deaths—of mentors, parents, siblings, dear friends.

The resilience these losses require.

And then we come to facing the loss of our very own selves into the great beyond, there to be grieved over by others (or so we hope!). The living, breathing, animated self we were, now gone silent and still at last..

At one level—and early stages of life—we can barely imagine a world without us in it. But the imagining impinges on us as we age, those notable birthdays becoming all the more notable still...

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