In the Kingdom of the Ditch

Thoreau Dreams of Margaret Fuller Three Days after Her Death

50 Thoreau Dreams of Margaret Fuller Three Days after Her Death He finds himself staring across the shoals of Fire Island, her body beneath the waves, beneath the crown of a crescent moon, the coinage of its inconstancy. Her child has already been rolled in the surf, buried in the clutched arms of a dead sailor. The sea refuses to give up her body, as she refused to try for the shore while the ship came apart beneath her. He wonders if she knew this was a thin place, a space of rest, or if it was simply the sea’s seduction that laid her patience? The water has stolen her words: the manuscript’s shell and the winged figure of love raging for vindication. He knows loss is human, as is the desire to place blame, to find meaning in death, to weep forever if the body of the beloved is lost, never to be lowered beneath dirt’s rim. In the dark there is always the risk we will run aground, sandbar tossing us from our bunks, heaving the stern and bringing freight crashing through the vessel’s side. Before he arrives nearly a thousand people comb the wreckage, weigh the planks and spars, stealing away boxes shipped from the old world to this new place where a woman might conjure, might possess the idea, all things being equal, that the ballast could right the ship, that night might allow it to sail safely into harbor. ...