"Ice House"

The poem “Ice House” by Anne Michaels (Skin Divers, 1999) is an incredibly moving piece of poetry, where Michaels has assumed the character of Kathleen Scott, a real woman of history, who lost her husband. Part of what makes this poem so moving is the incredible way that Michaels writes from Scott’s point of view, capturing her and her emotions so well that many readers could fall into the trap of believe that Michael’s actually is Scott, or rather that “Ice House” is a narrative poem, written about Anne Michaels’ life.

I really enjoyed the emotional journey that the poem forces you to take. From the first line, it starts out with a note of mourning and sadness, saying, “Wherever we cry, / it’s far from home.” (Michaels 168). The reader goes through the emotions of grief, anger, bitterness, and the hollow, heavy sorrow of love, not lost, but torn away.

There were two lines, in particular, that struck me. The first was, “ We mourn in a place no one knows, / it’s our right that our grief be unseen.” (Michaels 172). This line struck me, partially because of its literal meaning, that grief is private and not something to be displayed or scrutinized, but primarily because of its second meaning, that no one understands or sees our grief because the place where we grieve is so detached from everyone and everything else that they could never hope to reach it.

The other line that stuck with me is at the very end of the poem. “I love you as if you’ll return / after years of absence. / As if we’d invented moonlight. (break) Still I dream / of your return.” (Michaels 172). What makes this line so powerful is, some what, the context of the poem. Michaels has woven as story of hurt and slight despair, of bitterness and deep sadness before this point. Now, in the final two stanzas, she comes back with this note of longing and tragic hope, that do nothing to lighten the mood, but rather remind the reader that she never stopped loving her husband. It think that it is stunning and sorrowful, all at once.
When we were reading this in class, I found myself suddenly remembering a song that I had on my iPod that I had found in my dad’s music. It is called “I Miss My Sky”, by Heather Nova. This song was written in a first person perspective about Amelia Earhardt’s last days, after she’d crashed her plane on the way back to the United States. It is beautiful and tragic, and part of the reason that it so much reminded me of this poem is the masterful way that Heather Nova wrote/sings this song so that you feel like it is Amelia Earhardt’s words. Go ahead and have a listen:
http://www.pilab.ch/Heather%20Nova%20-%20I%20miss%20my%20sky.mp3

And the lyrics:
I bury myself in the leaves to sleep
The sun so strong and rage so deep
I keep waking to find I've been dreaming again
And the sound of the ocean is not a plane
And far away they talk about me
In newspaper columns they write about me
round dinner tables and cocktail parties
I'm a heroine and a tragic figure
I'm a heroine as I'm lying here
Beneath my sky

And sometimes
Sometimes I cry
Sometimes
Sometimes I wonder
Why we're always coming down
And why we need to touch the ground
And why I didn't keep on heading
right on up to heaven
I miss my sky

Here from below the clouds are shadows
Not the golden mountains I used to fly through
Here from below the sky’s a painting
In a child's room with the future waiting
But not for me

I look up at the birds flying overhead
My sentinel's true but the signals dead
It's been 500 days of hope and sorrow
500 nights with no tomorrow
And the poetry and the best of me
And the heart and the spirit and the sex of me
All fell into the azure sea
In the tailspin with the last of me
And my wings, and my song, all that I knew is dead and gone
I'm weak and tired but my will is strong
And my hope lives on, my hope lives on

But sometimes
Sometimes I cry
Sometimes
Sometimes I wonder
Why we're always coming down
Why we need to touch the ground
Why I didn't keep on heading
Right on up to heaven
I miss my sky
I miss my sky