looking back on grief

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Tis good — the looking back on Grief —
To re-endure a Day —
We thought the Mighty Funeral —
Of All Conceived Joy —

To recollect how Busy Grass
Did meddle — one by one —
Till all the Grief with Summer — waved
And none could see the stone.

And though the Woe you have Today
Be larger — As the Sea
Exceeds its Unremembered Drop —
They’re Water — equally — 

 

 

 

 

~ Emily Dickinson

 from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

with thanks to brainpickings

grow accustomed

We grow accustomed to the Dark -

When light is put away -

As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp

To witness her Goodbye -

A Moment - We uncertain step

For newness of the night -

Then - fit our Vision to the Dark -

And meet the Road - erect -

And so of larger - Darkness -

Those Evenings of the Brain -

When no a Moon disclose a sign -

Or Star - come out - within -

The Bravest - grope a little -

And sometimes hit a Tree

Directly in the Forehead -

 But as they learn to see -

Either the Darkness alters -

Or something in the sight

Adjusts itself to Midnight -

And Life steps almost straight.

~ Emily Dickenson 

the going

Exultation is the going

Of an inland soul to sea,

Past the houses - past the headlands -

Into deep Eternity -

Bred as we, among the mountains,

Can the sailor understand

The divine intoxication 

Of the first league out from land?

~ Emily Dickinson 

from Emily Dickenson - Complete Poems

 

while I am Emily

Show me Eternity, and I will show you Memory -

Both in one package lain

And lifted back again -

Be Sue - while I am Emily -

Be next - what you have ever been - Infinity -

***

Parting is one of the exactions

of a Mortal Life.

It is bleak - like Dying

but occurs more times.

To escape the former,

some invite the last.

The Giant in the Human Heart

was never met outside.

~ Emily Dickinson

from New poems of Emily Dickinson

art by Fabrizio Cassetta

.

.

the thing with feathers

"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—

I've heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.


~ Emily Dickinson

from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Edited by R. W. Franklin

 with thanks to Love is a Place

The mountains stood in haze

The mountains stood in haze,

The valleys stopped below,

And went or waited as they liked

The river and the sky.

At leisure was the sun.

His interests of fire

A little from remark withdrawn.

The twilight spoke the spire.

So soft upon the scene

The act of evening fell

We felt how neighborly a thing

Was the invisible.

~ Emily Dickinson

the whole of love

We learned the whole of love,

The alphabet, the words,

A chapter, then the mighty book--

Then revelation closed.

But in each other's eyes

An ignorance beheld

Diviner than the childhood's,

And each to each a child.

Attempted to expound

What neither understood.

Alas, that wisdom is so large

And truth so manifold!

~ Emily Dickinson

breithlá sona, Emily

790

Nature — the Gentlest Mother is,

Impatient of no Child —

The feeblest — or the waywardest —

Her Admonition mild —

In Forest — and the Hill —

By Traveller — be heard —

Restraining Rampant Squirrel —

Or too impetuous Bird —

How fair Her Conversation —

A Summer Afternoon —

Her Household — Her Assembly —

And when the Sun go down —

Her Voice among the Aisles

Incite the timid prayer

Of the minutest Cricket —

The most unworthy Flower —

When all the Children sleep —

She turns as long away

As will suffice to light Her lamps —

Then bending from the Sky —

With infinite Affection —

And infiniter Care —

Her Golden finger on Her lip —

Wills Silence — Everywhere —

~ Emily Dickinson

with thanks to writers almanac

on the occasion of her mothers death - Emily Dickinson

To Louise and Frances Norcross, November, 1882

Dear Cousins, 

I hoped to write you before, but mother's dying almost stunned my spirit. 

I have answered a few inquiries of love, but written little intuitively. She was scarcely the aunt you knew. The great mission of pain had been ratified—cultivated to tenderness by persistent sorrow, so that a larger mother died than had she died before. There was no earthly parting. She slipped from our fingers like a flake gathered by the wind, and is now part of the drift called "the infinite."

We don't know where she is, though so many tell us. 

I believe we shall in some manner be cherished by our Maker—that the One who gave us this remarkable earth has the power to surprise that which He has caused. Beyond that all is silence...

Mother was very beautiful when she had died. Seraphs are solemn artists. The illumination that comes but once paused upon her features, and it seemed like hiding a picture to lay her in the grave; but the grass that received my father will suffice his guest, the one he asked at the altar to visit him all his life.

I cannot tell how Eternity seems. It sweeps around me like a sea...Thank you for remembering me. Remembrance—mighty word. 

"Though gavest it to me from the foundation of the world."

Lovingly, 

Emily

eternity

.

Exultation is the going

Of an inland soul to sea,

Past the houses - past the headlands -

into deep Eternity -

.

Bred as we, among the mountains,

Can the sailor understand

The divine intoxication

Of the first league out from land?

.

~ Emily Dickinson

.

I died for beauty

.

I died for beauty, but was scarce

Adjusted in the tomb,

When one who died for truth was lain

In an adjoining room.

.

He questioned softly why I failed?

“For beauty,” I replied.

“And I for truth, -the two are one;

We brethren are,” he said.

.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,

We talked between the rooms,

Until the moss had reached our lips,

And covered up our names.

.

~ Emily Dickinson

.

There is a solitude of space

.

.

There is a solitude of space, 

A solitude of sea, 

A solitude of death, but these 

Society shall be, 

Compared with that profounder site, 

That polar privacy, 

A Soul admitted to Itself: 

Finite Infinity.

.

~  Emily Dickinson

.

I dwell in Possibility

.
I dwell in Possibility--
A fairer House than Prose--
More numerous of Windows--
Superior--for Doors--
.
Of Chambers as the Cedars--
Impregnable of Eye--
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky--
.
Of Visitors--the fairest--
For Occupation--This--
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise--

.

~ Emily Dickinson

Her face was in a bed of hair

.

Her face was in a bed of hair,

Like flowers in a plot-

Her hand was whiter than the sperm

That feeds the sacred light.

Her tongue more tender than the tune

That totters in the leaves-

Who hears may be incredulous,

Who witnesses, believes.

.

~ Emily Dickinson

.