"Iam determined to die where I am. In the little house that
I rent from good friends, overlooking the sea....We grow toward
death. It is the last great adventure and we must prepare for
it."
-May Sarton (1912-1995)
May Sarton died on July 15, 1995, in York, Maine, at the age of
83. She was a novelist, playwright, journal-keeper, poet, and,
since 1980, subscriber and donor to Sojourners.
The New York Times' obituary described her as the "strongest
of individualists...a stoical figure in American culture";
The Washington Post, as a prolific feminist and lesbian writer.
She was, no doubt, all of these, but first she was a deeply contemplative
poet who would give up everything the world deems important for
the sake of her work, her art- as she said-"her prayer."
The spirituality of May Sarton is largely ignored in reviews of
her work. The art world was not prepared to deal with the depth
of her faith, and the church was not prepared for her feminine
strengths and sufficiencies. Yet from the earliest sonnets, published
in 1929, to Coming Into Eighty (1994), each delicate white peony,
each wild sky breaking overhead, each silence, is wrapped in witness
to God. She prepared for death through faithfulness to her life.
In "Because What I Want Most Is Permanence" (The Land
of Silence, 1954), she wrote, "I come to you with only the
straight gaze./These are not hours of fire but years of praise."
The journal of her 82nd year is to be published this fall.
Read other articles by:
Berger, Rose Marie
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Read other articles by:
Berger, Rose Marie
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