Poem 457
From The Nightdress this is a solo for a young Constance at a crucial turning point mourning her mother’s death and tortured with guilt over her role in mocking her before she died (see Poem 425) … what happened in reality is that Constance’s stepmother destroyed her small plot of garden as a punishment but I’ve chosen instead to have it not thrive and Constance see that as symbolic of her marred and shrivelled internal landscape, she has come to see herself as both lifeless and not deserving of life and as hope for positivity dies in her the vacuum will be steadily replaced with a hidden implacable cold and rising anger to be avenged on the woman she blames for poisoning the family, she rejects self pity and instead projects her disgust with herself outward …
… the garden that it makes no sense to miss since it never came into being represents also the mother/daughter relationship she has been cheated of and also cheated herself of and a happy life she feels now and forever is out of reach … it’s a beautiful and a sad song of wrenching loss and despair in a young girl that increases our understanding of the emotional processes that will lead to her becoming a murderer, the anger determination and hardness of what is to come creeping in under the final verses …
( I got some inspiration for this from Another Suitcase Another Hall from Evita – specifically the way questions are used in that song to underscore the sad lost and lonely tone … )
What Have I Lost?
I tried to grow some flowers I tried to make it spring I should have known it couldn't come to anything not everything can bloom buried beneath the green lie seeds that never grow flowers that can't be seen I shouldn't miss what never existed what could I grow anyway? this is the last of the weeping days what is gone? what have I lost? Will my heart be whole? when will good things come? not from a ruined garden sins can't be undone I tried to give you spring though inside I'm cold and grey a winter heart within me what could I grow anyway? how can I miss what never existed? what could I grow anyway? this is the last of the weeping days Oh Constance how could you the wounded look she gave I just turned my back then she was in her grave what can I grow now? everything I touch will die I'll go my way alone you'll never see me cry so much that should have existed was broken defiled and twisted every way this is the last of the weeping days it's just a garden Time to get up off your knees try not to let anybody see instead here's what you say it's not like I could grow anything anyway this is the last of the weeping days what is gone? what have I lost? it was my garden now it's cursed what is gone? what have I lost? what have I lost?