The stark question, “There comes a time when you stop hoping for love. What then to live for?” opens Mao’s poem featured in The Kenyon Review (Mar/Apr 2020) and plunges the reader into a contemplation of emptiness. This poem, grappling with the absence of love and the search for meaning in its wake, resonates with a raw honesty that can be both painful and strangely comforting.
Contents
Substitutes and Disappointments
Mao offers “substitutes” for love: mundane objects like “lunch on your lap,” “power lines overhead,” and “heritage buildings.” These replacements, however, fail to truly nourish. The “black-bean noodles” leave no lasting sustenance, and the transient nature of the buildings, “razed yesterday, absent today, raised tomorrow,” highlights the fleeting nature of comfort found in the material world. This resonates with the experience of seeking solace in the ordinary only to find it falls short when confronted with profound emotional emptiness.
The Weight of Sorrow
The poem’s central image of accumulated debris transforming into an “oeuvre of sorrow” vividly captures the burden of emotional baggage. This “super-isle of flotsam, never to decompose,” represents the pervasive nature of grief and its resistance to easy resolution. The daily cycle of wishing for its demise and its subsequent reappearance speaks to the cyclical nature of emotional pain.
Finding Sweetness in the Void
Despite the pervasive sense of emptiness, a glimmer of hope emerges in the heart of the poem: “What sweetness touches you now, you must thank if you notice.” This simple yet profound statement encourages gratitude for even the smallest joys amidst despair. It suggests that acknowledging these moments of sweetness can offer a lifeline in the face of overwhelming sorrow.
Anguish and Gratitude: A Paradoxical Existence
The poem’s exploration of emptiness echoes themes found in other works, such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Raymond Carver’s “Late Fragment.” Frankenstein’s creature’s declaration that “Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me,” reflects the paradoxical nature of existence. Similarly, Carver’s desire “to call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth,” even amidst life’s challenges, highlights the enduring human need for connection and love.
A Catalog of Gratitude
Inspired by Mao’s call to notice sweetness, the article concludes with a personal reflection on gratitude. From the simple growth of a plant to shared moments of love and connection, these observations celebrate the small joys that punctuate even the darkest of times. This echoes Ross Gay’s “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude,” emphasizing the power of acknowledging and appreciating the everyday moments that give life meaning.
Embracing the Emptiness
Mao’s poem doesn’t offer easy answers to the question of what to live for in the absence of love. Instead, it invites us to confront the emptiness, acknowledge the sorrow, and, crucially, to seek out and appreciate the moments of sweetness that remain. It is in this delicate balance between anguish and gratitude that we may find a way to navigate the void.