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
Emily Dickinson
Of time’s uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee,
That will not state its sting.
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?
The Emily Project 