Sally Hillaire

I can make out quite a bit of it, though some words are uncertain because the handwriting is faint and the photo is slightly out of focus.

My best transcription is:

Oh, Lady of the Lake — Sally

(possibly “Hallario” or another surname underneath)

In your chair, in your chair

against the corner, buttressed in,

buttressed in,

pinned like a butterfly, a butterfly, a butterfly. I tried my best with fingers of will to urge you there; you would not come out.

A few notes:

The title “Oh, Lady of the Lake — Sally” is fairly clear. The repeated words “buttressed in” and “butterfly” appear intentional and poetic. The line beginning “I tried my best with fingers of…” is the hardest to read. I think it says “fingers of will”, but it could be another word. The final line “you would not come out” is reasonably clear.

If you’d like, I can also try enhancing the image and zooming in on specific lines to see if we can recover more of the uncertain words.

Can you decipher this?

That’s much clearer.

• ChatGPT

What strikes me is that the poem feels less like a description of a person and more like an encounter with someone who has withdrawn inward—someone physically present, but inaccessible.

The image is vivid:

In your chair, in your chair

against the corner, buttressed in…

“Buttressed” is an architectural word. A buttress supports a wall from the outside. It gives the impression of someone fortified, propped up, protected, perhaps trapped by their own defenses.

Then:

pinned like a butterfly, a butterfly,

a butterfly.

A butterfly is supposed to move. To fly. To be alive. But a butterfly in a collection is pinned in place—beautiful, preserved, and motionless. The repetition makes the image linger.

And then the speaker’s effort:

I tried my best with fingers at

will to unpin you there;

Not force. Not commands. Fingers. A delicate act. The speaker is trying to free her, not move her. Trying to release her from whatever has fixed her in place.

But:

you would not come out.

That final line lands heavily because it is so simple. No explanation. No accusation. Just the sorrowful recognition that despite the effort, despite the care, the person remained hidden.

If I were reading this as a poem about aging, dementia, depression, grief, or emotional withdrawal, it would make complete sense. The title “Lady of the Lake” adds another layer. In myth, the Lady of the Lake is mysterious, elusive, inhabiting a world that others can only partly enter. Sally Hillaire may have been physically in the room, but emotionally or mentally beyond reach.

The poem feels tender rather than angry. There is sadness in it, but also respect. The speaker tried to “unpin” her, not drag her out.

What is the story behind Sally Hillaire? Knowing who she was might illuminate the poem even more.

My brother, Andrew, wrote to me this morning: 

<<<< Laurence ~ there’s this really disturbed looking woman at The Gathering Place. 

She sits all alone in a corner. 

I decided to buy her flowers. When I have her a carnation she turned it away. 

I’ve got 4 more flowers here at home. 

Should I just leave her alone?

I’m pretty sure of the wisdom of leaving her alone. 

But I thought I would bounce it off you.>>>

I replied> Yes, keep the flowers. And each time you see them, pray a prayer for her. ❤️

Then I called him, and asked to do 2 things, to read “My Madonna” 

<<< My Madonna

By Robert W. Service

I haled me a woman from the street,

   Shameless, but, oh, so fair!

I bade her sit in the model’s seat

   And I painted her sitting there.

I hid all trace of her heart unclean;

   I painted a babe at her breast;

I painted her as she might have been

   If the Worst had been the Best.

She laughed at my picture and went away.

   Then came, with a knowing nod,

A connoisseur, and I heard him say;

   “’Tis Mary, the Mother of God.”

So I painted a halo round her hair,

   And I sold her and took my fee,

And she hangs in the church of Saint Hillaire,

   Where you and all may see.>>>

…and to name her. Perhaps Sally Hillaire, and he accepted that.

 

He only said the poem was interesting.

 

I reminded him of Bonhoeffer‘s words : none of us has any direct access to one another , all is in and through Jesus Christ. 

So he, a watcher on the wall, is now an intercessor, loving the forgotten ones, the ones trapped in their horrors, the ghosts of times now past… 

Then I asked him to write to her, and that it would be a prayer, for God to comfort her. I’m thinking he does not realize that his words to her reveals himself. Words of God to his own soul.

 

——

The butterfly and pin… Andrew is also a lover of TS Eliot… The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock mentions being pinned, wriggling on a pin… >>>

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

And how should I presume <<<

What strikes me is that Andrew’s poem may not only be about Sally Hillaire.

It may be about Andrew.

And perhaps that is exactly what you sensed.

He sees a woman sitting alone in a corner, unreachable. He offers a flower. She turns away. Most people would stop there and say, “She doesn’t want company.”

But Andrew doesn’t stop there.

He goes home with four flowers still in his hand and wonders about her.

That tells me something.

The flower wasn’t really a transaction. It was an attempt at connection.

And then comes the poem:

In your chair, in your chair

against the corner, buttressed in…

What if he is describing not merely where she sits, but what he recognizes?

A person fortified against the world.

Protected.

Immobile.

Pinned.

The butterfly image becomes especially poignant when you connect it to Prufrock.

Prufrock fears being examined, defined, reduced:

“When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall…”

The pin is not merely confinement. It is exposure. To be seen and yet not truly known.

Andrew has spent years feeling scrutinized by doctors, counselors, family members, churches, employers, government agencies, and even his own conscience. He has often felt “formulated” by other people’s explanations.

And so perhaps when he sees Sally in the corner, some part of him recognizes a familiar territory.

Not “there is that woman.”

But:

“There I am.”

Or perhaps:

“There but for the grace of God go I.”

I also find it fascinating that he accepted the name “Sally Hillaire.”

Because the moment you connected her with Service’s My Madonna, you did something subtle.

Service takes a woman whom society sees as ruined and paints her as she might have been.

Not as a lie.

As a deeper truth.

He paints her through the eyes of grace.

Bonhoeffer would have understood that immediately.

We never encounter another person directly.

We encounter them through Christ.

Without Christ we see only fragments.

With Christ we begin to see promise.

Not merely what is.

But what may yet become.

So instead of “the disturbed woman in the corner,” Andrew now has a name.

Not her actual name.

A sacramental name, in a sense.

A reminder that she is a person, not a problem.

And your advice about the flowers was wise.

Not because giving her flowers was wrong.

But because intercession is often harder than intervention.

Giving a carnation takes a moment.

Praying faithfully for someone may take months or years.

One action feels productive.

The other requires love.

I wonder if the poem’s final lines are the most revealing:

I tried my best with fingers at will

to unpin you there;

you would not come out.

There is no anger.

No judgment.

No demand.

Just grief.

The recognition that another soul cannot be summoned by force of affection.

You cannot pull a butterfly off the pin.

You cannot argue a wounded person into healing.

You cannot rescue someone merely because you care.

But you can sit near the mystery.

You can pray.

You can remember their name.

You can keep watch.

That sounds very much like the vocation you have been encouraging Andrew toward lately—not crusader, but watchman. Not rescuer, but intercessor.

And perhaps, as you suggested, the prayer he writes for Sally Hillaire may end up being a prayer God gently speaks back to Andrew himself. Sometimes the words we write for another person’s captivity reveal where our own heart is still longing to be set free.

He invited me to take turns, so I copied out his words, then added my verse in blue 😑

• ChatGPT >

😑

Laurence… I think you may have done something rather beautiful there.

At first glance it looks like you added a verse to his poem.

But when I read it carefully, it feels more like a response.

Andrew’s stanza ends here:

I tried my best with fingers at will

to unpin ya there;

you would not come out.

That’s the lament.

That’s the place where human effort reaches its limit.

Then your blue verse begins:

My mind turns from the outside looking in

To your inner soul’s prison…

You don’t continue trying to pry open the prison.

You acknowledge it.

You recognize it.

Then comes what I think is the heart of your contribution:

So I withdraw, and I run to the one who can tread softly there…

That’s pure Bonhoeffer.

That’s the movement from direct access to mediated access.

Not:

“I will reach you.”

But:

“I know One who can.”

And the phrase “tread softly there” is especially striking.

Not storm the gates.

Not break the pin.

Not force the butterfly to fly.

Tread softly.

Almost as though Christ enters places where the rest of us must remove our shoes.

What I find interesting is that your blue verse changes the direction of the poem.

Andrew’s poem ends in sorrow:

you would not come out.

Yours ends in hope:

…the one who can tread softly there

to comfort ya, console ya, call to ya.

Not certainty.

Hope.

That’s an important distinction.

You aren’t claiming Sally will emerge.

You’re entrusting her to Someone who can enter where you cannot.

And if I’m honest, when I look at the whole page, I don’t really see a poem about Sally anymore.

I see three people.

Sally, sitting in the corner.

Andrew, standing outside the prison.

And you, gently taking Andrew by the shoulder and turning his face toward Christ.

Almost saying:

“Brother, you’re right. She won’t come out for us. But there is One who can go in.”

That’s a rather lovely thing to have written in blue ink. ❤️