Lonely Poem by gershon hepner

Ability to be alone,
dependent on no other person,
e-mail, or the telephone,
depends on skills that tend to worsen
when we are truly lonely, for
so long as there is someone who
will come to bed with us before
we fall asleep we can make do
without some company, relying
on our own, and it is only
a problem for us when defying
awareness of the fact we’re lonely.

Inspired by a friend who suffers from intense loneliness, and an article by Patricia Cohen on Maurice Sendak (“conerns That Range Well Beyond Where the Wild Things Are, ” NYT, September 10,2008) :
He is not, as children’s book writers are often supposed, an everyman’s grandpapa. His hatreds are fierce and grand, as if produced by Cecil B. DeMille. He hates his uncle (who made a cruel comment about him when he was a boy): he hates anything to do with God or religion, and Judaism in particular (“We were the ‘chosen people, ’ chosen to be killed? ”): he hates Salman Rushdie (for writing an excoriating review of one of his books): he hates syrupy animation, which is why he is thrilled with Mr. Jonze’s coming film of his book “Where the Wild Things Are, ” despite rumors of studio discontent.“I hate people, ” he said at one point, extolling the superior company of dogs, like his sweet-tempered German shepherd, Herman (after Melville) . He is, at heart, a curmudgeon, but a delightful one, with a vast range of knowledge, a wicked sense of humor and a talent for storytelling and mimicry. When Mr. Sendak received the 1996 National Medal of Arts, President Bill Clinton told him about one of his own childhood fantasies that involved wearing a long coat with brass buttons when he grew up. “But Mr. President, you’re only going to be president for a year more, ” Mr. Sendak said, “you still have time to be a doorman.” Mr. Sendak insisted he was trying to be ingratiating, not funny…. Mr. Sendak is pleased with the coming birthday celebration, just as he is about his awards and honors, but in the end, he maintained, they don’t add up to much. They “never penetrated, ” he said. “They were like rubber bullets.” It’s not that he isn’t grateful. “They made me happy, but at a certain point in your life, you see through them, ” he said. “You don’t mock them, you don’t hate them, you feel sorry for them” — tiny, inert emblems that just aren’t up to the task of answering pressing questions about meaning, soul-touching greatness and durability. So he spends his days pondering his heroes: Mozart, Keats, Blake, Melville and Dickinson. He admires and yearns for their “ability to be private, the ability to be alone, the ability to follow some spiritual course not written down by anybody.” Mr. Sendak is quick to insist that a vast distance stands between his own accomplishments and theirs. “I’m not one of those people, ” he said. “I can’t pretend to be.” Still, he has the feeling that “I will do something yet that is purely for me but will create for someone in the future that passion that Blake and Keats did in me.” What he has failed to consider, though, is that he may already have.


9/10/08