To Love and to be Lonely

The power of love and loneliness can be found throughout “This Is Just to Say”, “l)a”, and “Love Medicine”. All three authors described love and or relationships as well as loneliness. Each of the three poems can be linked to one another because of the profound displays of human emotions.

In Williams’ “This Is Just to Say”, the speaker is not mentioned as a man or a woman. However, one can infer that the speaker might be in a relationship with someone of the opposite sex. The speaker is very forward when he/she talked about their wrong doing against their loved one. The speaker is very short in their apology and realizes their deceit. The word “Forgive” (Williams 9) begins the third stanza and was capitalized to add emphasis as well as personification. Even though the speaker went behind his/her loved ones back by eating the plums, they do not want their beloved to be angry when they discover the missing fruit. The dishonesty that the speaker committed is recognized and he/she is quick to offer their confession to preserve the love between the two and avoid an argument.

“l)a” was an odd piece of poetry. Cummings puts the phrase “a leaf falls” (Cummings 1) inside parentheses to help emphasize what is on the outside. Cummings made the parenthesized statement visually replicate leaves falling. The letters on the outside of the parentheses spell out the word loneliness. Although a speaker is again not mentioned, the audience could interpret a speaker watching the leaves fall. The season of autumn is well known for leaves changing color, dying, and falling off trees. When all the leaves have fallen, the tree is left barren and can appear to be lonely. Cumming could have been personifying a tree being lonely due the loss of its leaves. On the other hand, the speaker could be watching the leaves fall off a tree and loneliness might be evoked. Which ever side you take, the trait of loneliness is present and is shown though nature.

Louise Erdrich’s, “Love Medicine” was a moving piece that is about the real depth of love. The audience is introduced to the speaker, Lipsha Morrissey, who looks after his grandmother and grandfather. Lipsha deemed himself as having “the touch” (Erdrich 224). This touch comes in handy later on in the story. The relationship between the elderly couple has been a rocky one. The grandfather has come to be a handful in his old age and the grandmother has had her last straw. The grandmother was feeling lonely and distant from her husband. The feeling one loneliness can be linked back to “l)a”. There is a love medicine that is the Chippewa tribe specializes in and Lipsha is determined to make this potion in order to strengthen his grandparents dying bond. However, in the process of making the potion and incorporating his touch, Lipsha finds himself not following the traditional recipe. The climatic end of the story comes when Lipsha’s grandfather unfortunately chokes of a part of the love medicine. Both Lipsha and Grandma Kashpaw blame themselves for the untimely death of their beloved. Yet, in the end, Lipsha helps his grandmother realize that love medicine was not needed and her husband will always be with her. “Love medicine ain’t what brings him back to you Grandma. No, it’s something else. He loved you over time and distance, but he went off so quick he never got the chance to tell you how he loves you…”(Erdrich 236). This helps show how unending love can be and how powerful relationships are.

Both the elements of love and loneliness were deeply personified in the three works. Every relationship has its ups and downs, it is just a matter of how strong the love is between the two. Loneliness is a natural human element that we all face at one time or another. All three authors helped describe relationships, adoration, and loneliness in profound ways that can easily be related to everyday human life.