Hobnobbing with the Philosophers: Spinsters

Detail from “The School of Athens”
a fresco by Raphael (1483 – 1520)
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]

By Maik Strosahl

Sometimes, the strangest things can take you back. Take this internet photo, for instance.
I loved to read as a child, but did not enjoy it when forced in school to read a few chapters and discuss them afterwards in class. So when we got to Great Expectations in junior high, I earned my first “C” by “forgetting” to read the assignments and only passed the quizzes and tests by reading the Cliffs Notes. I did enjoy the book when I finally got to it on my own terms.
    I do recall not being a fan of Pip, who, coming back for Estella, was willing to let her whither as Miss Havisham because of her coldness toward him.
    I also remember seeing a couple of movie adaptations and hating them. I didn’t like being told what meanings I was supposed to get out of the characters and preferred my mind’s own pictures of what characters looked and sounded like.
    A couple of years ago, I found the mushroom picture on the internet and immediately thought of Miss Havisham and Estella, at least the picture of them I had created in my mind. It took me back, made me pick up a dusty copy of the novel and read it again.
    It made me remember my love for the story first, because for a while, at least, I had not read the book but remained content with the film adaptations that spoon-fed snippets of Dickens’ work as long as they fit a scene, changing details along the way to keep the story fresh, make it their own.
    Anyway, here’s to those little wake-up calls that bring us back to our roots, those sparks that wake our minds to loves lost that can still be rediscovered.

Spinsters

“Do you think me beautiful?”
The brush moves
from scalp to perfect ends,
hair grown long,
Estella in the
broken mirrored reflection
of today drifting
into yesteryear.

“Of course you are, my dear.”
Paper over veins and bone
guiding bristles upward
for another stroke
and looking into
Havisham past,
when eyes were
bright blue,
golden locks still flowed
with hope and laughter.

The hair,
gone grey to time
and expectations
great as they were,
never realized—
the brush,
long ago
dropped to the same floor
that gathered their dust
until blown away,
brushing their moments
into a cold mist
soon forgotten.

Copyright © 2023 by Maik Strosahl Michael E. Strosahl has focused on poetry for over twenty years, during which time he served a term as President of the Poetry Society of Indiana. He relocated to Jefferson City, Missouri, in 2018 and currently co-hosts a writers group there.