"What's Left?" (Years Later)

            Sharon Olds’ last poem in the Stag’s Leap is entitled “What’s Left” which proses the question of where Olds’ journey will take her now.

            Olds’ begins this poem by reminiscing of the state in which she was left after her divorce: “Something like half a person” (89). Old’s continues on to relate herself to a child who with proper nurturing became an adult and growing while growing apart with her husband.

            I would like to quote the last few lines of this poem: “ We fulfilled something in each other – / I believed him, he believed me, then we/ grew, and grew, I grieved him, he grieved me, / I completed him, he completed me, we / made a cloth together, we succeeded, / we perfected what lay between him and me, / I did not leave him, he did not leave me, / I freed him, he freed me”.

            This personally is the most powerful ending in Olds’ collection because it is definite, it is a statement, and it brings a full catharsis to the collection; I would however like to argue with the statement at the previous portion of the poem when Olds says that she is no longer part of a half. I agree that Olds is her own person; but, I think of her as just a more developed half, the half she should have been the entire time. The reason Olds is still a half is because there will always be joint things between her and her ex-husband; whether that be: kids, material objects, legal titles, time, memories, and even love.  I think Olds needed to still retain independence throughout her marriage by providing herself with a sense of self worth. I’m not saying that Olds clinged to her husband because she was entirely dependent on him; I’m saying that throughout the period of their relationship they converged too much, got lost in each other, and combined themselves into one barely recognizing where one person ended and the other began. Since trust is the cornerstone in a marriage, often people cease to provide emotionally for themselves when they have someone to make them happy.  Olds has shown the audience what happens if one is too emotionally dependent on someone else which is evidence of the old colloquialism: you can’t depend on anyone but yourself.

            What the reader after completing the collection should learn form Olds is to fall in love yet maintain one’s independence. It’s easy to get caught up in romance, everyone does it, I’ve done so myself; although it is possible someone for someone to fulfill one’s needs, but they don’t know how long this will last; it could be a week, five and a half months, or in thirty years. The reader should also learn to forgive; pain only occurs when one continues to gouge the wound. Be independent. Be forgiving. Free yourself from the situation. One should take my advice promptly. 

            - Nicki Clifford