I Like this Poem by Mary Ruefle

I was reading in Cold Pluto again and enjoying so many of the poems as I have for years.

I noticed a postcard from Mary with a funny messsage was marking one of my favorite poems.

This is "The Brooch."

It would be cool if such a piece of jewelry existed, that memento mori lyre pin. I know it's arguing with ectoplasm and going against the intent of the poem to focus on such details but if the Roman goldsmiths had used a little imagination they could have created an anchor-pin on the back of the brooch, wound and tied the hair and then capped it.

Hair lasts centuries, as anybody knows who has seen displays of mementi mori in museums. I find them among the most moving of all human productions of art.

This fascinating brooch his dear friend wanted could have existed. If the Roman goldsmiths had gotten past the "crimping."

But I suppose the loss of the smaller death inside the larger one would not have existed embodied in this poem so beautifully then.



     The Brooch


After Keats's death, Severn wanted to have made
a gold brooch in the shape of a lyre
with strands of John's hair for the strings.
In Oceania this doesn't amount to a thing.
The Hawaiian king stood resplendent
in his cape of feathers.
Ninety thousand birds were captured and killed
for their orange and yellow wings.
It took a century to complete, a century
for a man to become a bird.
Keats took a few minutes one afternoon
while writing a letter.
Still, there is no pin:
in all of Rome, Severn could not find a goldsmith
who could crimp the hair-strings in.