Stevens from afar

Earlier this week I randomly chose a poem from Stevens collection to write about, but I have not had the chance to do so yet, midterm a you see. So I thought I would ponder upon it some more until tomorrow morning. But alas, I cannot. I opened my email today and received an email from a dear friend of mine in china who I just met this summer. Sometimes our conversations get a little weird and out of order because she is still learning English and its full use while I am (as technological as I am) disastrously horrible at responding to emails or even posting as frequently as my mind thinks about things. Half way through her email she talked about her brothers wedding recently and how it made her think and feel... Here is an excerpt from the email (I will not correct any spelling or sentence structure)

These days, I am in a lose, without knowing clealy what is it that I really want in my furture. this time of coming back home, I saw my exhausted parents and my brother-in-law. It occurs to me that my brother has found his soul mate in his life, but he is not the premite brother of us. After all, he will be a father later, supporting a new family of his. But, how about me?
The queation haunches in my brain all the tome, without a concreat answer. Now, it seems more clearly before me.Now, I am alone in the dorm, as it is all the time. No matter when, in the future, I will be alone , aren't I？ to persuit the happiness of mine.

But this is how my mind played it out... 

These days, I am at loss
Without knowing clearly what I want...
What is in my future
Coming home, I saw my parents
Their exhausted selves, my brother in law
My own brother, he has found his soulmate 
He is no longer only one of us, 
Now he too will be a father someday
Now what of me?
This thought haunts my mind
Never is there an answer
Nothing concrete
Yet now, more clearly than ever
I am alone
Alone in my dorm
Alone everywhere
Will I always be alone
I now pursuit the happiness

And in the midst of all this, after doing a double take of her email... Stevens flashed in my mind. I literally had to say "are you kidding me?!" I felt a strong connection and awe for the feelings both my dear friend Dori provided me with in her email and Stevens poem "Girl in a nightgown"

Lights out. Shades up. A look at the weather. There, has been a booming all the spring, A refrain from the end of the boulevards. This is the silence of night, This is what could not be shaken, Full of stars and the images of stars- And that booming wintry and dull, Like a tottering, a failing Again and an end, Again and again, always there, Massive drums and leaden trumpets, Perceived by feeling instead of sense, A revolution of things colliding. Phrases! But of fear and of fate. The night should be warm and fluters'fortune Should play in the trees when morning comes. Once it was, the repose of night, Was a place, strong place, in which to sleep. It is shaken now. It will burst into flames, Either now or tomorrow or the day after that.

Although they may seem like nothing of sort, Dori simply is... The girl in the nightgown! Her fear and rate of being alone forever, like she is now haunts her mind. It's a revolution colliding in her that her dreams are not what she is working for. She is bursting with flames wondering of what it is she fears, her future. I ache for Dori because I know her exact feeling, but I must thank her for her email because it brought beauty and light in the world of Stevens!