The poet Jane Kenyon is telling off Melancholy:
You taught me to exist without gratitude.
You ruined my manners toward God …
Kenyon suffered from depression. Her descriptions of it — and of the remedies suggested by physicians with drugs and friends with advice — are horrifying. Her poems suggest that the response is “ordinary contentment.” She relishes the small wonders that bring joy.
Kenyon’s line about ruined manners astonishes me. Although I wouldn’t put it that way, I do see an order in the cosmos and want to be part of the way it works, rather than oblivious to it and estranged from it.
Kenyon said things about gratitude that I haven’t seen in the traditional scriptures. I want to spend more time with her poetry in the coming year.
• Jane Kenyon, “Having it out with Melancholy”; Poetry, November 1992. It’s here:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=161&issue=2&page=28
Kenyon has appeared in this collection of notes before, oddly around the holidays. See “A riff on the holiday blues,” Dec. 17, 2021.
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