I’m only going to briefly revisit her poem about “being over there,” because I suspect my first interpretation was correct.
But after being stunned by the sudden appearance of the scribe poem, I find myself doubting what I first believed as the meaning of all her poems and must look at them again, if only in passing to make sure there was not some hidden bit such as she inserted into a few poems last fall.
As first interpreted, this poem seems to be most direct, losing the vagueness that she usually incorporates when being sly or seeking to disguise some deeper meaning she might later be able to deny if someone exposes it.
There is almost no doubt about how she feels in this poem – and appears to be written as I first indicated – to a lover, perhaps the same man she’d had the affair with earlier this year, or another whom she would like to have one with, but as indicated in the Romeo and Juliet essay, divided by forces beyond both their control.
Only an extreme fantasy and ego-gratification interpretation would suggest this poem has anything to do with me, positive or negative – as much as some egotist part of me would like it to be.
But this county being one of the most political in nature, it is easy to believe that the subject of the poem is indeed someone on the other side of the political divide.
What she means by “I’m all the way over everything,” may suggest that she is forced to move on – although this is not the same tone as she had last fall when forced to resign from our office. This seems at the same time more personally significant and yet less massive a life choice. Life had forced her to choose between this or that, which is unfortunate because the two (whomever they are) could have continued to enjoy the over and under of their romance. There is great regret in the tone, and just a touch of something darker, tragic even.
The poem suggests what might have been, sad, not despondent, filled with tender disappointment, but not resignation, as she looks elsewhere for something that can better satisfy her needs.
She clearly sees nothing here for her any more.
Yet at the same time, it implies gratitude for what was, and she seems to be summing up a situation and saying thanks before shutting the window of whatever it was they shared.
To whom the poem is written is a very lucky man indeed, although in some ways the tone resembles things she later wrote about her Brooklyn stalker, how it was a situation that could not work out, and you have to wonder if there is a bit of opportunism here as well. She claimed to have left the job with the stalker because he was such a bad businessman and it left her no opportunity for advancement. Is this a similar situation in which politics got in the way of her ambition?
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