In The Secular Night Poem by Margaret Atwood

In The Secular Night

Rating: 3.9


In the secular night you wander around
alone in your house. It's two-thirty.
Everyone has deserted you,
or this is your story;
you remember it from being sixteen,
when the others were out somewhere, having a good time,
or so you suspected,
and you had to baby-sit.
You took a large scoop of vanilla ice-cream
and filled up the glass with grapejuice
and ginger ale, and put on Glenn Miller
with his big-band sound,
and lit a cigarette and blew the smoke up the chimney,
and cried for a while because you were not dancing,
and then danced, by yourself, your mouth circled with purple.

Now, forty years later, things have changed,
and it's baby lima beans.
It's necessary to reserve a secret vice.
This is what comes from forgetting to eat
at the stated mealtimes. You simmer them carefully,
drain, add cream and pepper,
and amble up and down the stairs,
scooping them up with your fingers right out of the bowl,
talking to yourself out loud.
You'd be surprised if you got an answer,
but that part will come later.

There is so much silence between the words,
you say. You say, The sensed absence
of God and the sensed presence
amount to much the same thing,
only in reverse.
You say, I have too much white clothing.
You start to hum.
Several hundred years ago
this could have been mysticism
or heresy. It isn't now.
Outside there are sirens.
Someone's been run over.
The century grinds on.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Not a member No 4 29 January 2007

Someone's real life in this on-rolling world. Authentic, three dimensional, convincingly detailed - a little bit of all of us in this. Loved 'but that part will come later'. Earlier than you'd expect though! This is great. I can see why she's such an influence on PH writers.

6 1 Reply
Sylvaonyema Uba 11 February 2017

..the sensed absence Beautiful poem! Sylva

0 0 Reply
Mohit Katyal 12 July 2017

truly its just awesome..

0 0 Reply
Dr Antony Theodore 19 April 2020

There is so much silence between the words, you say. You say, The sensed absence of God and the sensed presence amount to much the same thing, a very good poem. tony

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Ruta Mohapatra 18 August 2020

The human situation! Thanks for sharing!

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Mahtab Bangalee 18 August 2020

everything in the gyre of evolution, revolution of time, nature, materialistic life; everyone and everything from the flora and fauna of this world here on this earth live as not static or stable for everlasting or eternally; here on this earth everything and everyone varies place to place, time to time, person or things to person to things; everything is not suitable for everyone in one or all time......

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Mahtab Bangalee 18 August 2020

Several hundred years ago this could have been mysticism or heresy. It isn't now......this poem greatly written this poem; thought provoking on the secularism

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Deepak Kumar Pattanayak 18 August 2020

Very well narrated of someone's life, the reality once may look like a mystery, an unbelievable thing 10++

0 0 Reply
Khairul Ahsan 18 August 2020

'The century grinds on' - a profound perception! True!

0 0 Reply
doug scotney 18 August 2020

thanks be for change...

0 0 Reply
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