Blank Joy
Blank Joy - meaning Summary
Longing Shaped Into Absence
The poem examines absence as a shaping force: the beloved who never arrives still 'organizes' and decorates the speaker's inner life. It treats longing as creative labor, suggesting the heart must invent the object of love and prefers that imagined joy over many possible pleasures. The speaker’s tears are presented not simply as sorrow but as evidence of choosing and cultivating a singular, absent presence within themselves.
Read Complete AnalysesShe who did not come, wasn't she determined nonetheless to organize and decorate my heart? If we had to exist to become the one we love, what would the heart have to create? Lovely joy left blank, perhaps you are the center of all my labors and my loves. If I've wept for you so much, it's because I preferred you among so many outlined joys.
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