DRAB habitation of whom?
Emily Dickinson
Tabernacle or tomb,
Or dome of worm,
Or porch of gnome,
Or some elf’s catacomb?
While this is a short poem, it’s absolutely full of questions. First of all: who in the world lives in this little cocoon? We aren’t given any context clues; we don’t know what flower or branch might be holding the thing, or what color it is; we aren’t sure of the season, either. But the speaker isn’t done with questions.
“Tabernacle or tomb”: is this a place of religion–reverence, life–or is it a place of death? Put plainly, is a butterfly going to come out of this chrysalis, or has it already exited? Is it lying dead in its self-made coffin, unknown to us?
“Or dome of worm”: is the worm not yet turned into a butterfly? Have we happened on the site too early to have witnessed any change? Or are we talking about the worm here in the Shakespearean sense, as that little worker between body and burial?
“Or porch of gnome, / Or some elf’s catacomb?”: is this something entirely supernatural? And if so, is it a porch–the place where something might currently be living–or a burial ground?
Is this poem about life, or death? And what is a cocoon, anyway? Sure, the caterpillar lives on as a butterfly, but the caterpillar self is dead (as is the cocoon dead organic matter after the butterfly escapes). What’s left of the original thing? Is the cocoon a reminder of the new life that’s about to begin, or of the old one–or the second death the caterpillar will experience when the butterfly, too, dies?
The Emily Project 