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    AC Benus
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Poetry posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 

The Great Mirror of Same-Sex Love - Poetry - 1. …Vera Brittain Breaks Her Beloved’s Heart by Marrying a Man…

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…Vera Brittain Breaks Her Belovèd’s Heart by Marrying a Man…

 

(Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby met as volunteer field hospital nurses in the Frist World War. After they came home to London, they lived together until death did them part, even after Vera entered into a marriage to have a child, which the female couple raised together. Despite the purpose, Winifred understandably was heartbroken that she could not be her partner’s spouse in the conventional way. The following forms a Haibun, with Vera speaking about her wedding day, and concluding with a gut-punched poem Winifred wrote the same evening.)

 

[Winifred walked me down the aisle, and gave me away.] When I stood with G[eorge] before the altar, I felt rather than saw, her standing behind me. [She had] a luminous tenderness which seemed to glow like the rose-pink peonies on the chancel rails as a long shaft of sunlight pierced the tall, high windows.

That night, when all the festivities were over and she returned home to the realization that I was actually married and gone, she told me later that she became violently conscious of the ticking of the clocks in the empty flat. We had quite a number, usually wrong, and I had been accustomed to wind them all. [S]he sat down at the large sitting-room table, which we had shared for our work, and wrote a short poem called:[i]

 

The Foolish Clocks

 

Now she is gone but all her clocks are ticking

With gentle voices, punctual and polite.

Their thrifty hands the scattered moments picking

Tossed from the careless bounty of the night.

 

Oh, foolish clocks, who had no wit for hoarding

The precious moments when my love was here,

Be silent now, and cease this vain recording

Of worthless hours, since she is not near.

—Winifred Holtby,[ii]

1925

 

 

 


[i] “Vera Brittain Breaks Her Belovèd’s Heart by Marrying a Man” Vera Brittain Testament of Friendship (New York 1940), p. 156

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.58054/page/n177/mode/2up

Thanks go to the tireless Lucy London, who researches and publishes on First World War poets, for introducing me to Holtby and Brittain's relationship ❤️
as noted
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Poetry posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 
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5 minutes ago, Parker Owens said:

I found this intensely moving. Thanks for sharing it with us. 

Thanks, Parker. This ties in with Holtby's quote from chapter 5 of the Prose volume of the Mirror.

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38 minutes ago, starboardtack said:

Exquisite

Thanks, starboardtack, I appreciate the encouragement 

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Its been a while since I read haiku, poetry in general actually, but this was a nice re-introduction to the format. Thanks for sharing, it paints a lovely picture of loneliness and heartache.

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13 hours ago, D.K. Daniels said:

Its been a while since I read haiku, poetry in general actually, but this was a nice re-introduction to the format. Thanks for sharing, it paints a lovely picture of loneliness and heartache.

Thanks for reading and commenting, D. K. :)

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