All hushed and still within the house;
Without–all wind and driving rain;
But something whispers to my mind,
Through rain and through the wailing wind,
Never again.
Never again? Why not again?
Memory has power as real as thine.

Emily Brontë

This brief poem is a curious one. There is little about it that is standard, and yet it stirs in me deep emotions. And this is fitting, for that is what I see in this poem. Like a heartbeat, I move back and forth while I read. I am in the present, but also dragged through all my past. I am within looking out. It is quiet, but out there is a storm. But looking in, she is alone, still. And yet, is she? She is both: the stoic holding back the torrent within, the calm within watching the storm around. But I go back in, this time, to her mind: never again. What shall never be again? Why must “it” not be repeated? Fear? Hate? The absence of love? Pain? I see it all. For the pain, the frozen memory, the reliving all that has been and cannot be, the moments of agony, the self now gone – all of it pours across again and again. But they shall not be relived, though the memory brings them back. So like Brontë, I am still and hushed within, though a torrent wishes to be present like the storm outside. Hush, now. The whisper reaches through the storm, and the heartbeat is found between the breaths. Never again. Yes, memory hurts as much as they, but not here. Never again.

Blessings to you and yours,

~Madelyn Rose Craig