Rouge gagne

Pam and BrennaLeave a comment

’T is so much joy! ’T is so much joy!
If I should fail, what poverty!
And yet, as poor as I
Have ventured all upon a throw;
Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so
This side the victory!

Life is but life, and death but death!
Bliss is but bliss, and breath but breath!
And if, indeed, I fail,
At least to know the worst is sweet. Defeat means nothing but defeat,
No drearier can prevail!

And if I gain,—oh, gun at sea,
Oh, bells that in the steeples be,
At first repeat it slow!
For heaven is a different thing
Conjectured, and waked sudden in,
And might o’erwhelm me so!

~Emily Dickinson

“Rouge et noir” seems aptly titled, but this one is weird. “Red wins”–really? That’s not exactly what I’m getting from this poem. The speaker is imagining red winning, but that win, when envisioned, seems to end as a loss. If she won, heaven “might o’erwhelm me so!” And the whole poem is still conjecture. She hasn’t won yet. She doesn’t know if she will. She’s still waiting for the result, waiting to find out what her fate will be. The word “if” appears in each stanza.

The whole poem sustains, through its dashes and exclamation points and incomplete thoughts, a mood of frenetic anticipation. What will happen? Will I win? And will that win really be a victory?

Rouge et noir

Pam and Brenna1 Comment

Soul, wilt thou toss again?
By just such a hazard
Hundreds have lost, indeed,
But tens have won an all.

Angels’ breathless ballot
Lingers to record thee;
Imps in eager caucus
Raffle for my soul.

~Emily Dickinson

The poem’s title, of course, is not Dickinson’s, but it’s evocative. This poem itself strikes me as very different from her usual style and theme. Though Dickinson often delves into darkness, the image of demonic little imps eagerly vying for her soul is a different shade of darkness.

Is she writing about herself? or is she being more philosophical, more general? I wonder what inspired this poem. It’s interesting that in the very first line, the speaker acknowledges that she’s already gambled her soul, at least once–“Soul, wilt thou toss again?” How did the first toss go? If you lose your soul once, can you gamble it again? If you win it once, is it possible to lose it after that?

It’s a strange poem, and raises so many more questions than it answers.

“wrecks in peace”

Pam and BrennaLeave a comment

A sloop of amber slips away
Upon an ether sea,
And wrecks in peace a purple tar,
The son of ecstasy.

~Emily Dickinson

Yesterday evening, grimed with sweat and smoke from an afternoon of picking up and installing new hives, I sat on the grass in front of the newly-homed colonies of honeybees as the half-moon hung overhead and the sunset splashed amber and purple across the western sky. I love these liminal times best, the moments when day is becoming evening and evening is becoming night. Bees, I think, are liminal creatures. They trace thin golden paths through the ether between life and death–they are so fragile individually, yet as a group they are strong. They persist.

There is something vital about a hive in a way that no other creatures can emulate. Bees hum, zoom, dive, buzz, sing and vibrate life, spilling it out in wild trajectories through the still air. They dance the winds, trace the edge of sight and possibility. They are so tiny, yet so wildly, fiercely, abundantly alive.

Yesterday afternoon, in the beeyard, I watched, rapt, as the beekeeper pointed out two-day-old larvae, four-day-old, six. And then he pointed to an opening cell and said, with all the excitement of a kid on Christmas morning at the top of the stairs, “Look!”

A brand-new adult bee was hatching from her cell, the front of her head just showing, wriggling with life. I have never seen that before. I cannot explain the power in that moment, that instant of transformation from shapeless grub to complex insect, from needy little soft squishy thing to shining, valiant warrior-girl. What will she become? Will she guard the hive? tend the babies? wait on her queen? How long will she live? Not long, doubtless. A worker bee’s life is short. And yet that brief existence will bolster the eternity of the hive (here’s hoping…beekeeping is notoriously tetchy).

It is in these liminal spaces, these in-between moments, whether the setting of the sun or the hatching of a bee, that magic resides. It is there for the finding, if you wait, if you look. Catch it, and you too will be wrecked by the peace of it, in the most beautiful way.

XLII: I WONDER if the sepulchre

Pam and BrennaLeave a comment

I WONDER if the sepulchre
Is not a lonesome way,
When men and boys, and larks and June
Go down the fields to hay!

Emily Dickinson

I love a poem that can be read two ways. This one is no exception. It looks simple, at first: probably the speaker is wondering if the sepulchre, or grave, is lonesome when it’s June and all of the men are going into the fields to make hay, and the birds, I suppose, are following them.

But what if the speaker is arguing the opposite? What if, as she says, the sepulchre “is not a lonesome way” (emphasis mine) when this haying is happening?

Presumably, the sepulchre is not in the hay fields. So who, then, is visiting the grave when the men are working?

Well, one presumes, the women. While the men are cutting the grass, and thereby making hay from the fallen strands, maybe the women are visiting the dead. So the two are dealing with death in different ways: the men are hastening it to make hay; the women are visiting it.

What do you think? Is the sepulchre lonely or not?

What’s in a title?

Pam and BrennaLeave a comment

PIGMY seraphs gone astray,
Velvet people from Vevay,
Belles from some lost summer day,
Bees’ exclusive coterie.
Paris could not lay the fold
Belted down with emerald;
Venice could not show a cheek
Of a tint so lustrous meek.
Never such an ambuscade
As of brier and leaf displayed
For my little damask maid.
I had rather wear her grace
Than an earl’s distinguished face;
I had rather dwell like her
Than be Duke of Exeter,
Royalty enough for me
To subdue the bumble-bee!

~Emily Dickinson

Pam: I like how the point of this poem seems to be that roses are better than people, because Emily, I completely agree. Sometimes, at least!

Brenna: Are roses ever worse than people? I mean.

Pam: But people are definitely frequently worse than roses.

Brenna: I love that she calls them “Velvet people.” “From Vevay,” whatever the heck that means. Now I Google!!

Pam: That’s the first thing I did!!

Brenna: First Google search result for “Vevay”: a town in Indiana. 😀

Pam: Apparently it’s a town in Indiana, which is named for a town in Switzerland.

Brenna: Okay, that makes more sense.

Pam: But that one is spelled “Vevey.” So is Emily’s spelling off, or did she really love Indiana?

Brenna: I cannot see Emily waxing poetic about Indiana. We’re talking about a person who thinks most bees are male, so I’m gonna go with “Emily’s spelling is off.” Could she have done it on purpose? Conflating Vevay and Vevey might underscore her point about how it doesn’t really matter who you are or where you’re from. Vevay, Vevey, whatever, roses are better.

Since she goes on to name Paris and Venice, and reference London, I feel like she’s going for the European city.

Pam: I think that’s a very interesting point! This is one of those (myriad) times when I wish we could call her up and ask her.

Brenna: Right?!Every other line…..

Pam: Agreed. She’s comparing roses to these European highlights.

Brenna: I just can’t get over the loveliness of referring to flowers as “velvet people.” I love it.

Pam: And specifically, places of fashion, I guess?

Brenna: Yes! Exclusive places.

Pam: Same. And she’s exactly right. There’s no other way to describe the texture of those really huge roses. They’re velvety! I like that this poem incorporates the sense of touch. Usually we write about roses’ scent, but I don’t think she touches on that here!

Brenna: Oooh, good point! There’s no scent at all in this poem. It’s all sight and touch.

Pam: This is all to show us that no matter what fine clothes you might wear, you will never be as high fashion as a rose. Isn’t that odd? She doesn’t touch on thorns, either.

Brenna: She does mention “brier.”

Pam: You’re right!! I totally missed that one.

Brenna: I think it’s a good observation, though. “Brier” is fairly subtle. Usually she likes to overtly remind us of something painful or mortal, something that mars the perfection. But this is 100% positive.

Pam: I also love that, despite talking about the “fashion” of roses, she’s comparing them to men. An earl? Nope, you’re nothing. Duke of Exeter? No thank you, I’d rather be a rose.

Brenna: Yes! And her roses are exclusively feminine. I so want this to be some kind of feminist manifesto.

Pam: I think it absolutely can be! She could have gone the “singing flowers in Alice in Wonderland” route, but she’s solely comparing them to the men, who are lacking.

Brenna: The undervalued–whether it’s nature vs. humans, men vs. women, rural vs. cultured–is always better. In this poem.

Pam: And, as you said, she talks of bees as male, yes? But says that roses–feminine–subdue them.

Brenna: Yup. She always thinks bees are dudes. Which was apparently a common misconception at the time. The fact that worker bees are female (that most bees are female) had been discovered, but a lot of people either didn’t realize or didn’t accept that fact.

Pam: To her eyes, flowers are producers and bees are takers, yes? It makes sense to equate them with specific genders if she thinks of them that way.

Brenna: There are other poems where she depicts bees as conquerors of flowers. But in this one, she flips that model. The rose vanquishes the bee. In one of the poems I read earlier this week, the bee is a knight. But in this one, the rose is victorious.

Pam: The title is telling, too, I think. This is not some rose that she sees out in town; it’s hers. She grew it. Her rose is better, stronger.

Brenna: Though the title isn’t hers, right?

Pam: Oh, you’re right! Darn it, collectors of the poems.

Brenna: Right?! Sometimes a title is so perfect, and then I have to remind myself that she never intended it.

Pam: She does say “my little damask maid.” So maybe it’s hers? It would have been such a good title, too!!

Brenna: Yes! And I think the general tone of the poem is very much a “MY thing is better than OTHER things” kind of vibe. Just because my thing is humbler and natural and everywhere and free, it’s not less than high-falutin’ things. My thing is, in fact, better than all those other things. And dudes.

Pam: Yes. Exactly. My thing is naturally better without having to put on airs or wear the latest clothing. It just is.

Brenna: Yes. She does a lot of this, doesn’t she? Arguing for the simple pleasures over the elaborate ones.

Pam: Yes. In this case, I get the sense that she’s saying, so what if I’m a bit of a homebody who really loves gardening? If it produces this kind of perfection, who wouldn’t be in love with it?

Brenna: Yes. She’s very insistent on herself, on her own identity and preferences. I like that. It’s very un-nineteenth-century of her.

Pam: Brenna, apparently damask is a kind of rose! I thought it odd to associate that fabric with plainness, but a damask rose is a highly scented one. So she is talking about fragrance after all!

Brenna: I knew damask was a rose, but I had no idea about the fragrance! Oooh, well-played, Emily!

Pam: I think I learn something new with every poem, honestly.

Brenna: SAME. And it does double-duty for touch because of course damask is also fabric and she knew it.

Pam: And now I’m looking at fragrant roses that are out of stock, so thank you for prompting me to empty my bank account but at a time of year when it’s not possible, Emily!

Brenna: Well, we learned about damask and Vevay, but otherwise I feel like this one is oddly straightforward. It seems like the happy ones usually are.

Pam: I appreciate that. She’s delivering a pretty forceful message and she’s not hiding in it.

Rain and not bees

Pam and BrennaLeave a comment

A drop fell on the apple tree
Another on the roof;
A half a dozen kissed the eaves,
And made the gables laugh.

A few went out to help the brook,
That went to help the sea.
Myself conjectured, Were they pearls,
What necklaces could be!

The dust replaced in hoisted roads,
The birds jocoser sung;
The sunshine threw his hat away,
The orchards spangles hung.

The breezes brought dejected lutes,
And bathed them in the glee;
The East put out a single flag,
And signed the fete away.

~Emily Dickinson

If we were having the kind of summer shower Dickinson is writing about, I would be picking up my bees today. No such luck. Bees, like other witches, do not appreciate getting wet. They get downright grouchy. When the barometer falls, otherwise lovely honeybees become Not Very Nice People.

So today, instead of picking up my bees, I am daydreaming of bees, reading Dickinson’s poems about or referencing bees, and wondering when this rain is going to end.

This is not a summer shower. This is a summer monsoon. It’s just not stopping. It’s supposed to rain all day tomorrow, too, so no bees until Tuesday.

I’ve waited two years. I guess I can wait a little longer.

Butterfly-carts and bee-wagons

Pam and BrennaLeave a comment

A little road not made of man,
Enabled of the eye,
Accessible to thill of bee,
Or cart of butterfly.

If town it have, beyond itself,
’T is that I cannot say;
I only sigh,—no vehicle
Bears me along that way.

~Emily Dickinson

I too can only sigh. It seems Emily was often wondering what it would be like to experience the world as its tinier denizens do. This road is doubly inaccessible because it is little and not made for humans, and is also a road through the air. It is for butterflies’ carts and bees’ wagons. (I had to look up “thill.”)

The notion of butterflies and bees pulling little carts is amusing. Or are they driving them? What on earth would insects do with carts? The idea that this road is for vehicles I find quite bemusing. Dickinson must have been in a whimsical mood when she penned this one.

Baronial bees!

Pam and BrennaLeave a comment

Some rainbow coming from the fair!
Some vision of the World Cashmere
I confidently see!
Or else a peacock’s purple train,
Feather by feather, on the plain
Fritters itself away!

The dreamy butterflies bestir,
Lethargic pools resume the whir
Of last year’s sundered tune.
From some old fortress on the sun
Baronial bees march, one by one,
In murmuring platoon!

The robins stand as thick to-day
As flakes of snow stood yesterday,
On fence and roof and twig.
The orchis binds her feather on
For her old lover, Don the Sun,
Revisiting the bog!

Without commander, countless, still,
The regiment of wood and hill
In bright detachment stand.
Behold! Whose multitudes are these?
The children of whose turbaned seas,
Or what Circassian land?

~Emily Dickinson

There’s much to love about this poem. In my edition, it’s titled “Summer’s Armies,” which I really like. It seems fitting. So many armies–hordes and throngs of birds, insects, blossoms, marching on into eternity, felled cyclically but always resurrected.

And the “baronial bees,” of course. The image is amusing to anyone who’s ever spent even a few minutes bee-watching. Never have I ever seen bees march one by one. Order they have in spades, but not in any way we think of it, and certainly not in a single-file way. There is a beautiful order to a hive, to its comings and goings, but on a warm day, to the human eye a bustling hive looks at first like sheer chaos. It’s an airport where no one appears to be performing air traffic control. Bees are everywhere. They clot the air, zoom in for crazy landings, twist and squiggle their ways around each other. Yet they know exactly what they’re doing, and nobody crashes into anybody or anything else.

They are a murmuring platoon, though. There are few lovelier sounds than their soft constant hymn to the sun.

Revery alone?

Pam and BrennaLeave a comment

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,—
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do
If bees are few.

~Emily Dickinson

Okay, I know what she means, but this is one poem I can’t separate from my own historical moment. Revery can and does create not just prairies but entire worlds, it’s true. And yet…

And yet. Bees are fewer now than they’ve ever been. I’ve lost hives–entire colonies, abandoned, leaving only a few mute bodies behind, tiny corpses that clutch their secrets so close that I cannot read in them the sad stories of their deaths. My small losses are mere symptoms of a larger problem, a story that may or may not end well.

If we’re not more careful of this wide, small, terribly beautiful, beautifully terrible world we’ve been granted, revery alone will have to do. And it will be found wanting every time.

“Homesick for steadfast honey”

Pam and BrennaLeave a comment

THE NEAREST dream recedes, unrealized. The heaven we chase
Like the June bee
Before the school-boy
Invites the race;
Stoops to an easy clover—
Dips—evades—teases—deploys;
Then to the royal clouds
Lifts his light pinnace
Heedless of the boy
Staring, bewildered, at the mocking sky.

Homesick for steadfast honey,
Ah! the bee flies not
That brews that rare variety.

~Emily Dickinson

I’ve been without bees for a couple of years now, and I do not like it. Homesick for honey, yes, but even more, viscerally, for the companionship of bees, their presence, their energy humming out through the warm soft heaviness of summer air.

It’s difficult to explain–I think there are people who are entranced by bees on some very instinctive level, and people who are not. There are people who are allergic to bees, of course.

I was talking recently with a friend about the kinds of strange preferences people often discover themselves to have, and we were wondering if there was something deeply ingrained in human nature, in DNA, in something, that is inherited. Why do we love the cuisines of certain places? Why does some music stir our souls? Is this baked into us somehow? I wonder this about beekeeping. Is this somehow embedded in me?

I am an anxious person, a twitchy kind of soul, the kind of person who annoys other people inadvertently by frenetically tapping my feet without realizing I’m doing it. I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder years ago. There are very few things I can do that completely take my mind off the fretful minutiae of daily life. Beekeeping is one of those things.

The first time I installed bees in a hive, shaking them from their box into the waiting hive body, they swarmed up in a golden cloud around me, filling the air. It would have made sense if I’d been terrified–but instead, a soul-deep peace settled over me, and for a moment, I was entirely caught up in that shimmering haze of wings. I knew in that instant that I wanted that feeling, needed it, always, forever, as much and as long as possible. Bees heal something deep within me.

I have been homesick for them these past couple of years. But they are coming! Soon I’ll be picking up my new hives. I will drive them home to their spot in the little orchard. I will sing to them–I always sing to them. Songs about bees, about honey and stings, life and death and sweetness–the things bees understand. And then, at long last, we will all be home.