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X. A charm invests a face

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A CHARM invests a face
Imperfectly beheld,–
The lady dare not lift her veil
For fear it be dispelled.

But peers beyond her mesh,
And wishes, and denies,–
Lest interview annul a want
That image satisfies.

Emily Dickinson

This, to me, reads like the love poem version of “I’m Nobody! Who are you?”

It’s also refreshingly honest. “A CHARM invests a face / Imperfectly beheld”: you’re darn right it does. This isn’t love at first sight, precisely; maybe it’s more like infatuation at first sight. This is the feeling you might have when you see someone attractive across the room, but you don’t know anything about them–and you don’t really want them to see you, either.

There’s a bit of a mystique about crushing on someone from afar. It’s middle school (and high school) all over again. It’s staring at somebody across a sweaty gym floor during a Valentine’s dance. You’re building up a teenage love story in your head without really knowing the other person, and it’s safe, too–you don’t have to get to know them, and you don’t have to let them know you, either.

It’s the “denies” part of the poem that seals it. Yes, the lady is looking and wishing, but she knows the whole time that she’s not going to do anything about this person who has captivated her. What happens if you talk to the boy across the gym floor? What if he turns out to be a jerk? What if he doesn’t like you? What if he’s just plain annoying? Better, says our speaker, to be satisfied with looking. At least then, you can’t be let down.

Our speaker doesn’t say it, but you can’t let the other person down, either, if you never try to speak. The narrator seems to be building this little love story as a warning against being let down by somebody else–but it’s a very safe thing for the narrator, too, to remain silent. Nothing risked, nothing gained, right? And this way, there’s no fear of rejection. If you never speak up, they can never turn you down.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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We think we’ve found it at last–an Emily Dickinson love poem that’s actually about love and not secretly about death! Enjoy!

XXIX


The rose did caper on her cheek,
Her bodice rose and fell,
Her pretty speech, like drunken men,
Did stagger pitiful.


Her fingers fumbled at her work,—
Her needle would not go;
What ailed so smart a little maid
It puzzled me to know,


Till opposite I spied a cheek
That bore another rose;
Just opposite, another speech
That like the drunkard goes;


A vest that, like the bodice, danced
To the immortal tune,—
Till those two troubled little clocks
Ticked softly into one.

~Emily Dickinson

XIII – HEART, we will forget him!

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HEART, we will forget him!
You and I, tonight!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.

When you have done, pray tell me,
That I my thoughts may dim;
Haste! lest while you’re lagging,
I may remember him!

Emily Dickinson

I adore this little nugget of a poem. Not because I think there’s anything special going on here; there’s no thread of hidden knowledge I plan to tease out. This is a breakup poem, pure and simple, and I love the absolutely done-ness of that opening line: we don’t need him, anyway!

However, it’s an Emily Dickinson breakup poem. This means that we have to deal with the narrator speaking to the heart as though it’s a separate entity; as though head and heart must both forget the object of their affection. It makes sense. In high school, I dated a boy for around three years, and when we broke up, my heart was done but my brain hadn’t gotten the memo yet. I must have picked up the phone to call him half a dozen times–we talked on the phone every night, bless the late 90s–before breaking that habit.

It wasn’t that I wanted to talk to him; I didn’t. I was just so used to the motion that my brain kept trying to repeat that same pattern.

The narrator here seems to have a slightly more complicated problem. She’s asking the heart to forget, and to let her know when that’s done–because if it’s not soon, the narrator is going to remember him. Is this an inevitability, then, since head and heart don’t seem to be on the same wavelength?

For what it’s worth, I’m not sure that this relationship is finished. Having to tell yourself that you’re going to forget a man seems less like Frodo taking the ring up Mount Doom, and more like Gollum hoarding his treasure in a deep cavern. Or, to put it more plainly: if Emily’d had a phone, she might have dialed this gentleman’s digits before she finished blotting the ink on this poem.

With a Flower

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WHEN roses cease to bloom, dear,
And violets are done,
When bumble-bees in solemn flight
Have passed beyond the sun,

The hand that paused to gather
Upon this summer’s day
Will idle lie, in Auburn–
Then take my flower, pray!

Emily Dickinson

Both of my grandmothers were prolific gardeners, and so, apparently, was my great aunt Ruth. She died either the day before or after I was born–I’ve always loved that, and can never remember which is true–and my parents bought her house and we moved in when I was 2. She planted camellias absolutely everywhere, and they’re still there, bright hot pink lights in the winter.

My maternal grandmother, Maw-Maw, I remember more for her vegetable garden, but her blueberry bushes and peach trees are fresh in my mind (and in my tastebuds). My paternal grandmother, Grannie, had the most lovely red spider lilies outside her front window.

Maybe that’s why I don’t read this poem and immediately imagine it written to a lover. I think about the gardeners who lived before me, who planted things I still get to see, and I think about my daylilies in the front yard and the Felicia rose in the backyard that will, hopefully, live for a very long time. I hope that they’re still going after I’m gone.

When roses cease to bloom and bumblebees have flown beyond the sun–there must still be some flowers to gather, so I can’t think that Dickinson is imagining the end of the world. She’s still lying in repose, after all. Auburn, I’m supposing, is the city in Massachusetts, about an hour’s drive from Amherst. In typical Dickinson fashion, she’s telling us to take the flowers from her grave, I think. And I think my grandmothers would approve.

Prompt: If you were coming in the fall

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IF you were coming in the fall,
I’d brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spurn,
As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I’d wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,
I’d count them on my hand,
Subtracting till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen’s land.

If certain, when this life was out,
That yours and mine should be,
I’d toss it yonder like a rind,,
And taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of the length
Of time’s uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee,
That will not state its sting.

Emily Dickinson

I’m not sure this poem was meant to be sad, but oh, I feel that it is. There’s such yearning here: such desperation. If I knew that we’d be together in eternity, the speaker says, I’d happily die now. But it’s the not knowing how long it will take for the unspoken (and, perhaps, unknown) lover to come that proves the speaker’s undoing: if only she knew when the lover might arrive, she could handle it. What do you do when you’re single, and you don’t know when–or if–that will change?

Today’s prompt: consider life from the perspective of the unknown lover. What if this lover knows about the poet–and knows how long it will take for them to meet? Would the lover wonder whether the poet would wait? Is the lover delaying for a reason?

With a Flower

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I HIDE myself within my flower,
That wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too–
And angels know the rest.

I hide myself within my flower,
That, fading from your vase,
You, unsuspecting, feel for me
Almost a loneliness.

Emily Dickinson

I’ve had a black thumb for a long time.

The first plant I ever killed was a cactus. I have murdered so many gifted aloe plants that my mother-in-law has, I think, stopped trying. Every fall I buy mums and water them diligently for around two weeks before feeling very confident about my mum-raising skills and then consigning them to the trash heap a month later after forgetting to so much as twitch a hose in their direction.

On a whim two Septembers ago, I went to our botanical garden’s daylily sale and bought five plants. This house, when we moved in two years ago, was a completely blank slate: there were no flowers planted anywhere. So, knowing nothing about daylilies, I bought them, popped them in the ground in a circular flower bed in the front of the house, and forgot about them for a good six months. Imagine my surprise when they grew stalks, and the stalks grew buds, and the buds actually flowered. Every single daylily bloomed.

I was so excited, I bought more: roses and azaleas, forsythia, daffodils. Some have bloomed and some haven’t; some I forgot to even put in the ground (sorry, daffodils). But when I get flowers, I wait a day or two and then head outside with scissors–snip snip–to gather buds for vases on the kitchen table. And every time I see my makeshift bouquets, my little heart swells with pride. I did that.

I’ve never given a bouquet away before, but this poem makes me want to. Not for romantic love; but there’s a wonderful reciprocal sort of emotion Dickinson describes when she talks about the “unsuspecting” feeling a pang of loneliness for the gardener. If I give you flowers, I have to like you (remember, I’m not that great at growing things); if you receive them, you might, one hopes, feel a smidgen of affection for me, too.

We hide ourselves in the gifts we give. How important were Valentines to me when I gave them to crushes; how many times I either didn’t receive any back, or got the dreaded “You’re a great friend, Valentine,” I’ll never remember. The idea of the lonely gardener hiding herself in the flowers she gives is touching mostly, I think, because the receiver is unsuspecting–she can’t have told them, then. If I’m putting myself in the poet’s shoes, this is a rollercoaster of emotion; I would be so excited to have grown flowers at all. There’s life in the flowers and death in the cutting; hope in the giving and rejection, unintentional or not, from the unsuspected.

Fire

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“ASHES denote that fire was;
Respect the grayest pile
For the departed creature’s sake
That hovered there awhile.

Fire exists the first in light,
and then consolidates–
Only the chemist can disclose
Into what carbonates.”

Emily Dickinson

Brenna: The first thing I want to say is that I was looking for a poem that would make me feel warm. Fire seemed like a good start. I forgot that this is Dickinson, so the fire is dead. sigh

Pam: You tried, though! That is pretty hilarious. She can turn even fire into a memorial for both dead creature and fire.

Brenna: Right?! I swear. Emily is the original goth girl.

Pam: I would like to say that her rhyme scheme in this poem is absolutely bananas. Consolidate/carbonate? Really, Emily?? You used “carbonate” as end rhyme???

Brenna: Is “carbonate” even a verb?? Or did she just verb it? But this poem. As tortuous as the rhyming of “carbonate” is, it has some cool stuff going on. I love the idea of fire as a creature that is temporarily invoked, that hovers awhile and then leaves. It’s like a wild creature that comes and goes.

Pam: It is a creature that has also consumed a dead creature! The “departed creature”: is this an animal or a person?

Brenna: Hmm…departed creature…I don’t think it’s necessarily human. Just “animal” in the sense of “alive,” “animate.” It’s sort of demi-god-like. It’s an entity. The specifics don’t necessarily matter. But again, this is Dickinson, so she may be talking about someone who just kicked the bucket.

Pam: So the poem is titled “Fire,” but it’s about ashes and death.

Brenna: It is. EMILY.

Pam: So why call it “Fire”?

Brenna: Well, at the beginning the fire is dead–but then it’s not REALLY dead. It has “carbonated,” whatever the heck that is. It’s as if some kind of alchemy has transpired.

Pam: Because only fire has the power to reduce a creature–what kind of creature doesn’t matter, as you said, because it could be any creature–into ashes. Fire comes from light but it causes the opposite, I suppose.

Brenna: Fire has morphed from heat and light to….something. Ahh, yes. Fire creates death. Peak Emily.

Pam: It’s a devourer. It devours what was and leaves a transmuted other. So it’s death squared?

Brenna: And then it goes, right? I get the sense from this poem that the fire isn’t really dead. It’s just come and gone.

Pam: Death of the soul AND death of the flesh?

Brenna: Fire exists in light (the soul in heaven?). Then it consolidates (soul enters flesh?). Then it carbonates into something else, but only the chemist (God?) can say what that is.

Pam: And who set the fire?

Brenna: God the chemist.

Pam: For such a short poem, we’re coming up with a long list of questions.

Brenna: I think God is the chemist who transforms soul into flesh and then back out of flesh again into some other state that we can’t know.

Pam: This is a poem that makes me wonder about circumstances. Were cremations common? For people, or animals? Did she witness one? Or the aftermath? Did someone’s house burn down? What inspired this?

Brenna: Hmm…she talks so much about conventional burials and tombs. I can’t imagine cremation was common. But this poem is similar in metaphor to yesterday’s, “The White Heat.” Fire is a purifying/purging force that burns away the dross of human nature. So this is a perfect poem for Imbolc/St. Brigid’s Day/Candlemas!

Brenna: I think fire, in her poetic lexicon, is shorthand for divinely-inspired or divinely-accomplished change. Transformation. As far as I can remember, she doesn’t tend to use it so much in the sense of passion. She tends to use the language of storm and cold for that, which is interesting. I think of her description of poetry: “When I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.”

Pam: I did not know that! I’m definitely not a Dickinson scholar.

Brenna: So I think that, for her, fire is not the hot, hot lovin’ metaphor that it is for other poets. It’s about change, transformation, sublimation, growth, alchemy.

Pam: But there’s no gold here! We get ashes.

Brenna: We do get ashes!! But we must respect them!!

Possibility

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CV
THE GRAVE my little cottage is,
Where, keeping house for thee,
I make my parlor orderly,
And lay the marble tea,
For two divided, briefly,
A cycle, it may be,
Till everlasting life unite
In strong society.

~Emily Dickinson

Today’s poem contains a clue to our next idea for a creative collaboration (hint: it’s not a funeral parlor). It’s funny and magical and wondrous how one creative endeavor often begets another. We’re kicking around ideas for an exciting new project. Watch this space…

The Snow

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It sifts from Leaden Sieves –
It powders all the Wood.
It fills with Alabaster Wool
The Wrinkles of the Road –

It makes an even Face
Of Mountain, and of Plain –
Unbroken Forehead from the East
Unto the East again –

It reaches to the Fence –
It wraps it Rail by Rail
Till it is lost in Fleeces –
It deals Celestial Vail

To Stump, and Stack – and Stem –
A Summer’s empty Room –
Acres of Joints, where Harvests were,
Recordless, but for them –

It Ruffles Wrists of Posts
As Ankles of a Queen –
Then stills it’s Artisans – like Ghosts –
Denying they have been –

Emily Dickinson

As I write this, my portion of North Alabama is lying still under a winter weather advisory. No, really. We don’t know how to drive in snow–we rarely get it, we don’t have snowplows, we don’t always have salt for the roads–so folks who don’t have to go out are probably avoiding travel. Schools, universities, businesses–there are lots of closures set up for tomorrow already.

We’re predicted to get about 2.5″ of snow.

This snow is not going to do what the snow in the poem above does. The snow in the poem above has agency; it shifts, powders, and fills. It reaches, wraps, deals, ruffles, and stills.

We’ll be lucky if our snow simply sticks, but it’s so much fun–for someone who, admittedly, hasn’t seen a lot of snow–to imagine a snow like the one above. A snow that blankets everything. A snow that fills the ruts in the road. A snow that covers farmland. A snow that puts a sheet of thick cotton batting over every available surface.

The end of this poem, the stilling of artisans like ghosts, is that moment when the snowflakes have finished and the snow remains, untouched. The end of this poem feels like the gasp you might have if you looked out and saw that spectacle–even the poem can’t finish its last sentence. Where’s the final period?

Usually when we get snow predictions, they bust. Cities north and south and east and west will get a few inches, and we’ll grumble loudly instead. The temperature is dropping, and supposedly, the changeover from drizzle to snow will happen in a few hours. Plenty of time for snow to pick some active verbs and go to work–

XXVI: The brain within its groove

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THE BRAIN within its groove
Runs evenly and true;
But let a splinter swerve,
’T were easier for you
To put the water back
When floods have slit the hills,
And scooped a turnpike for themselves,
And blotted out the mills!

Some days I just cannot be a person.

Today was one of those days. I wasted hours–I’m not exaggerating here–sitting in my chair, reading unimportant nonsense on my phone.

I could have been reading one of the many books in my to-read pile. I could have been grading papers. I could have been finishing the poem I started yesterday. or I could have started something else. And when Brenna asked me if I’d had any writing time lately, I answered truthfully, but I was pretty ashamed when I said no.

My brain was not within its groove today.

I’m not sure what causes these days. They happen more often than I’d like to admit. And the poem is right: when these swerves happen, it would be easier to reverse a flood than to get my brain back on track. Every little thing is an inconvenience. I need to take a shower, but I also need to organize papers, but I can’t grade them because I have to readjust point categories, but even if I graded them I have to add categories to Blackboard before I can record them, and I have two loads of clean laundry to fold, and I haven’t done anything worthwhile all day, and I’m useless, and I have phone calls to make, and a thousand other things to do, so I sit in my chair and do none of them.

These days seem impossible: and then one thing changes. We went to visit friends tonight, and played games for over four hours. My brain is back on its track. And even if I don’t have a planned game date the next time my brain swerves, at least I can remember that the poem fails to tell you one thing: yes, it’s hard to get back on track, but it can be done.