Anne Sexton’s poem “Letter Written on a Ferry While Crossing Long Island Sound”—which is far too long to include with this brief reflection—begins in the middle of things. The speaker says, “I am surprised to see / that the ocean is still going on.” With that single sentence the speaker alludes to a history not ever fully disclosed to the reader. Hints exist, though, such as the “dearest” to whom the speaker directs her thoughts. Other words suggest a fraught relationship, words like “ripped” in the first stanza and “although everything has happened / nothing has happened” in the second.
These are helpful anchors in the poem; they give the reader some ballasts as the speaker moves between the real and the imagined. They also allow the reader to empathize with the speaker, to enter into the speaker’s story without knowing its details. In addition, they invite the reader to experience mystery and wonder, to set personal narratives within a larger story, and to ponder the nature of vision.
At least, I was drawn toward those three things when reading Sexton’s poem—and I’ve read it over a dozen times now. Every time I find something new to contemplate, such as the repetition of “as I said I would” in the first stanza and the line, “Oh, all right, I say, / I’ll save myself,” in the third. The words sound defiant, a kind of obstinate endurance, that the speaker finds reflected in the sea. And yet, not perfectly reflected; the sea reminds the speaker that her life is not the only life, that the sea and life—and even Mary—go on.
The nuns affect the speaker in a similar way, calling the speaker to remember other realities besides the one where she rips her hand from a presumed beloved’s. The nuns appear, perhaps significantly, after the speaker declares she will save herself. She initially views them from an “earthy” perspective, which is in itself delightful. The speaker describes them as “a bridge club / … as good as good babies who / have sunk into their carriages.” With those images the speaker grants insight into these four nuns: serious, as only those who play bridge can be, and quiet.
But the speaker’s vision quickly transmutes from earth to heaven. The wind “pulls the skirts / of their arms” revealing “that holy wrist, / that ankle, / that chain.” In response to the sight the speaker prays—a wishful prayer—for the nuns to rise from their seats and swim in the sky. The speaker is not separate from them; rather, she enjoins herself to them with the small pronoun “my.” The speaker longs for flight, for freedom or remedy or maybe, simply, a brief respite from sadness and a reality that requires her to save herself.
And she succeeds, if only in mind and spirit. She says, “Dearest / see how my dark girls sally forth, / over the passing lighthouse of Plum Gut.” The nuns rise, their dresses puffing “in the leeward air.” They go up, “lighter than flying dogs / or the breath of dolphins.” The nuns drink the sky and call back, not to the speaker, but to an “us,” referring, most likely, to the speaker and the unidentified “dearest.” And they call back what sounds like hope, what seems like restored vision, however momentary that hope and vision may be. They call “from the gauzy edge of paradise, / good news, good news.”