A Humble Dwelling

The elevator clanged to a jolting halt. Almost at the same time - just thinking about it frazzles the nerves, so maybe it was at exactly the same moment - the lights went out in my chamber. It was between the fifth and sixth floors, in the tallest building on the Southern Maine College campus. I had been going from one English class to another. One was Nineteenth Century American Literature, a third year course. The other was Post World War II Literary Trends, also an advanced class.

For the first class, we had discussed Emily Dickinson’s propensity to stay within the boundaries of the home and if it was an accurate concept for the poet. What did her poetry say about confinement, spaces, and the like? For the second class we were going to be commenting on the language poets and on the use of pure sound in constructing a poem.

The first class hadn’t been bad at all and I was intrigued by Dickinson’s isolation in her residence in Amherst, Massachusetts. I felt there were a lot of threads tied to her references to the spaces she inhabited, some positive and others petrifying. That Emily sure could write. A lot of class time had centered on a well-known poem. Now, all by myself, swaddled, or maybe straitjacketed is more accurate, in my temporary residence, I struggled to stay in breathing mode. The lines came roaring at me, so contrary to how I pictured the voice of the poet from Amherst, who had remained close to home her whole life.

I dwell in Possibility –

A fairer House than Prose –

More numerous of Windows –

Superior – for Doors –

Possibility was a huge place. So many places in it to go in and out. So full of openings and closings, innings and outings. A mansion or a world. Where could one put Possibility, given its immensity? All I could see when reading this poem aloud was a great crystal palace, like the one in the Parque del Retiro in Madrid. Never-ending, never-stopping space. I choked by my tears, blackened and blended by the coffin elevator.

Of Chambers as the Cedars –

Impregnable of eye –

And for an everlasting Roof

The Gambrels of the Sky –

For all I knew, the sky was gone forever, its gambrels no more than a memory. The roof that had once been immense was now like a bit of plastic, the kind you put on pans in the oven to make it shrink and twist. I desperately hoped the elevator did not have oven knobs to manipulate.

Of Visitors – the fairest –

For Occupation – This –

The spreading wide my narrow Hands

To gather Paradise –

Well, that had been the poem, before they put us (the verses and me) in the stalled vertical box that was my Hell. Emily had reached with her delicate fingers and had grasped the perfection of her world. If I did that, I would be met by cold metal I could not see. My own hands felt blunt and fearful, convinced it would not be Paradise I’d find if I spread my fingers wide. There was no wideness anywhere to be had.

Emily’s poem was dangerous for a person in confinement like I was. I needed to focus on something else, even if darkness made focusing impossible...

The second class, the one I’d been en route to attend, was going to be on gender choice in modern poetry and its effect on readers. We had been assigned another oft-read poem that was not gentle, not world-embracing, not about the power of verse. It was about entering a space that awaited, not calmly, but instead kicking and screaming. Two things I was starting to want to do right about now.

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I was more than happy to rage, to be furious at my situation. Hell, I was ready to go stark, raving mad into that good night, if I could just reach it. My claustrophobia was on fire, I was burning and raving. On the edge, ready to topple off into madness, except there were no edges to use for toppling and my light was not dying: it was already dead. So was time. I had no idea what time it was.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

I was neither a man nor was I wise, but I knew dark was wrong. I tried screaming a little bit, hoping my words might fork some lightning and laser through my night chamber. I was, of course, desperate. I wasn’t going gentle into any night, good or otherwise. In fact, I wasn’t going anyway, I feared. Still, the poem was a lesson on how you best employ one’s last breaths...

I shuddered.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

That was another problem: I had no bay nearby, not that I could see, although I knew I was within walking distance of beautiful Casco Bay, where Portland, Maine, is situated. Such a lovely bay, marvelous sight... and totally invisible from within the slick metal walls of what wanted to be my casket. I cried, not caring if the bay outside my walls was green or blue at the moment. I wanted to go running toward it, taking all my frail deeds with me. 

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

By now I was a wild woman, grieving nothing except the idiocy of having stepped into my steel-walled prison at the precise moment when everything on campus stopped working. I hadn’t accomplished anything by my cries for help, which had begun to degenerate into yowling, so I stopped. People might think I was odd and decide being locked up was good for me. I fell silent and started thinking about the lovely bay that my frail dreams were currently unable to reach. Maybe they never would.

This Dylan Thomas poem was written for his dying father and always has given me chills, but we had been considering what would happen to our perception of the poem if we altered the masculine references in some way. Was it ethical to do that? Was it a good way to get at our reader response? We had prepared a rather extensive list of questions and my group was looking forward to the class. I had been looking forward to it.

Good men, wild men - human beings capable of rage and with the strength to meet their Maker. Not me, oh no. Not singing, either, because if they heard me they’d think I’ve gone mad. In cases like this one, I doubt it makes any difference if the person trapped here is male or female.

Now I am between Scylla and Charybdis, between a rock and a hard place, between the Devil and the deep blue sea, between Emily Dickinson and Dylan Thomas. I am also up a ‘crick’ without a paddle. Why? Because I am stuck in this @#$%^&* elevator by myself and my claustrophobia is starting to kick in. Not a good thing. I am between everything, and especially between floors in this building. These walls are between me and the rest of the world. I can’t reach Emily’s Possibility, nor can I get to Dylan’s good night. I can’t go anywhere, and it’s starting to show...

I need a miracle.

I am just going to close my eyes until the workers get the generator working and the power comes back on. There’s some distant clanking going on. I can do this. I know I can do this. I have to do this. Come on, Em, let’s rally the troops, keep me safe until I bust outta here. 

Dylan, my man, it’s your turn to put shoulder to the wheel and lend a hand. Nobody is getting out of here for the moment. That includes you.

***

The woman has fallen asleep. Hard to say whether it’s all that poetry or all the stress. 

Finally, the elevator starts to work again and descends, stopping on the first floor. People have been waiting to see if she was all right after so long in that enclosed space. Did she need water? Ibuprofen? Did she feel sick? Seeing her on the floor, they thought she’d fainted, or worse, had had a stroke.

She said I’m fine, really I am. The ones who gave me a hard time in here were Emily and Dylan. She pointed with her thumb to the mirrored cubicle where she’d been captive for the past four hours. They wouldn’t leave me alone and weren’t very good at taking turns when they were talking.

The trio looked at her and tried to get her to explain, so she did. She explained the sometimes heated discussion between the other two elevator occupants:

She described space as portrayed in the verses, how it is used to expand and be present in the one case. Then, in the other case, what surrounds and waits it is the place one enters when life draws to a close. One is gentle, while the other is rough, claiming the need to roar at the close of life.

She described where the speaker is situated in each case: one, calmly inside a vastness; the other, fighting with the vastness, refusing to let go. The ruler with a wave of narrow hands, has everything. The loser of life, headed for the darkness.

Who else is in the poems? One speaker sits alone, constructing her world, simply. The other speaker is cheering the wild, dying man to release his fury, the way all men should do. Proper and proud vs. anguished and lashing out. One living, the other dying, heading across a border defined by the final night.

The mood of each speaker is obvious. One is a gentle architect; the other seeks no peace, but has purpose. Gentle vs. raging. Does one have to choose? Can one select one’s answer to the world when it comes calling? 

Can one select the elevator when required to go up or down a level? Is there really the right elevator when it comes to making choices?

Emily said it was her doing, that she chose her residence and it provided her freedom with a view. Even inside her freedom, the windows and doors allowed the world to come to her.

Then Dylan got all up in Em’s business and said the good ones make noise as they depart. There is nothing left but anger and battle. He probably sniffed at the female poet’s attitude and put up his fists to land some punches as the world turned to darkness.

***

They wanted to take me to the emergency clinic to be assessed before allowing me to drive home, because it was quite late and I must be traumatized after being held captive for all that time. I live twenty-five miles away and there would be traffic on 295. I might be too upset to drive. I shook my head vigorously. 

Then they thought I must have fallen asleep after all and was still coming out of what must have been quite the dream. After about ten minutes of discussion and the generous gift of some mineral water, they shook their heads one more time and slowly retreated, turning around a couple times to make sure I hadn’t collapsed onto the floor. I had managed to convince them of my mental stability. I could drive. I could make it home. I was free again to do what I wanted with the world. I was not planning to take the elevator with me.

Finally! I stood on the walk that curved down to Bedford Street from the high rise classroom building. I would cross Bedford and a few more steps would take me to the parking garage. I was glad they’d left me alone. The rescuers had meant well, but Emily, Dylan, and I still had quite a bit to discuss and it was getting late. We needed to concentrate on sorting out our perspectives. After all, the three of us had just spent some serious intimate time together and we still hadn’t worked out our gender differences. I was still in the middle on the issues.

My apartment was small but comfortable. I invited my companions to come with me. I was fine to drive, but their company was welcome. They could come in for a nightcap, coffee, a glass of water. They accepted my invitation.

We were all thinking the same thing: How could we arrange it so we could get trapped again in an elevator for a long time? And if we were fortunate enough to survive, would it be difficult to get off after several hours and not need to be taken for a psychological evaluation?

I knew the answer. We would not need a real elevator, plus I had had my fill of metal coffins for a while. Three’s a crowd, they say, and I agreed. We could build our own place and hold our own jousting tournaments with what is out there, all around us. We could set our own boundaries, smash them, start over. We - all three of us survivors - had words we could use.

Don’t get me wrong, I told Dylan and Emily. I value your company, but there’s room for more if we’re not trapped in an elevator. 

My small apartment might be a humble dwelling, but it has doors and windows, plus lots and lots of books. Lots and lots of poetry. We can turn on the lights and read.

I’d like that.