Adrienne Rich - Mourning Picture lyrics

The picture was painted by
Edwin Romanzo Elmer
(1850-1923) as a memorial to
His daughter Effie
In the poem it is the dead girl who speaks

They have carried the mahogany chair
And the cane rocker
Out under the lilac bush
And my father and mother darkly sit there
In black clothes
Our clapboard house stands fast on it's hill
My doll lies in her wicker pram
Gazing at western Massachusetts
This was our world
I could remake each shaft of grass
Feeling it's rasp on my fingers
Draw out the map of every lilac leaf
Or the net of veins on my father’s
Grief tranced hand

Out of my head, half-bursting
Still filling, the dream condenses
Shadows, crystals, ceilings, meadows
Globe of dew
Under the dull green of the lilacs
Out in the light carving each spoke of the
Pram, the turned porch-pillars
Under high early-summer clouds
I am Effie, visible and invisible
Remembering and remembered

They will move from the house
Give the toys and pets away
Mute and rigid with loss my mother
Will ride the train to Baptist Corner
The silk-spool will run bare
I tell you, the thread that bound us lies
Faint as a web in the dew
Should I make you, world, again
Could I give back the leaf it's skeleton
The air it's early-summer cloud, the house
It's noonday presence, shadowless
And leave this out? I am Effie
You were my dream