“My Jane Kenyon Birthday Wish”

by Dana Dakin

I met the poet Jane Kenyon by accident in a bookstore,

the one found at the far end of town

in New London, New Hampshire,

one week after she died.

Walking through the open double doors,

there she was,

under a wash of fluorescent lights,

stretched out, pasted on foam board.

She was peering from under a wild bank of dark bangs,

with readers resting on her nose,

on the front cover of the Concord Monitor.

Above the fold.

I had never seen her before.

I would never meet her.

She had died at 47.

I was 51.

I stood there at the entrance of the bookstore,

consuming every word in her eulogized obituary.

Poets Jane Kenyon and her husband Donald Hall

shared an artist’s life together in Wilmot,

the next town over from where I stayed.

They moved to his family’s aging farmhouse

to spend full time at their writing craft,

and to become imbedded in the community.

She called him “Perkins” –

Co-independent.

Connected to the realities of New Hampshire soil.

Grounded in daily routine and mutual sensibility.

High productivity.

Philanthropic.

Turned on.

My God,

Who is this Jane Kenyon?

She’s living the life I imagined

when I came to stay on Lake Sunapee.

That morning, I had been told it was over.

Walking on the wide granite path

down to lakeside —

for a morning breakfast boat ride —

the man who had brought me from California

two years previous,

stopped midway and declared:

“I invited you to come

and live MY life

and you’re not happy.”

It was rehearsed.

He was asking me to leave.

We did have a heady life together.

We hopped around his three magical residences,

all credit card expenses paid in full.

He opened up worlds of technology and complexity,

emerging markets and global politics —

We danced on the floor of the Kremlin.

Arafat’s robe skimmed my ankle

passing in the halls of Davos.

But he was right.

I was not happy.

It was not OUR life.

That had never been in the contract.

I was no more than arm candy.

When things go bad,

You either go to a shrink or a bookstore.

Before reaching the self-help shelf,

I was hijacked by the love story of

Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon.

Standing still at the end of the display,

a loud shout crackled from inside me:

“THIS is the love I’m looking for!

I’m moving to Wilmot.”

My voice startled the woman at the store-counter,

her arm went out straight to where their books resided.

I bagged every one of them.

And set out to map the life of Don and Jane captured in their writing.

Odd crisscrosses and shortcuts,

the scent changing as I cruised around corners.

I parroted their life.

Traced the routes where Jane walked her beloved dog.

I attended church picnics and fairs,

and bushwacked to their secret picnic spot

on the large pond across the highway from their house

which held shouts of school kids

at go-away camp every summer.

I called a realtor. “I’m looking to buy a house in Wilmot.”

Finally, there it was.

A large broken-down garage

that had just been vacated.

The realtor said

“You don’t really want to see that.”

Six steps into the dingy cavernous space, I put in my offer:

Full price, all cash, no conditions, closing date as soon as possible.

The old Wilmot volunteer firehouse was to become mine.

I had found an artist’s loft

in the middle of a New England village.

A friend shipped a standup tent from Walmart

That became my bedroom.

I did the dishes in a birdbath. And stayed in town 25 years.

My great grandmother left for California by train

from Stowe, Vermont, in 1872.

Age 18, single, became a proofreader

on a newspaper in the gold country.

She never returned to New England.

I was heading back home to California in 2022:

from Wilmot, New Hampshire, age 80, single,

settling into a congregate living community in Mill Valley.

In my time away,

I had become a social change artist.

Going bottom up is my game,

to be a conduit for those in the world

yearning to get on the ground

and make a difference.

They are waiting for us.

Dana Dakin had a 35-year career in the financial services industry where she launched the first creative agency to focus on marketing for investment firms. In 2003, to celebrate turning 60, she launched WomensTrust, an NGO based in Ghana, West Africa. She grew up in the Bay Area and graduated from Scripps College in 1964. Dana is a member of CWC Marin.