We met as Sparks—Diverging Flints

We met as Sparks—Diverging Flints
Sent various—scattered ways—
We parted as the Central Flint
Were cloven with an Adze—
Subsisting on the Light We bore
Before We felt the Dark—
A Flint unto this Day—perhaps—
But for that single Spark.


     -F918, J958, sheet 11, 1865



Flint is a very hard dark quartz that produces sparks when it is struck.

 

So here you are, resting in your flinty flintness, in your dark “quartz contentment," when love strikes! It comes down like an adze and creates sparks. This is an image that is violent, but brilliant, like a lover’s passion.

This big bang is how you “meet.”

We met as Sparks—Diverging Flints.

I often want to just write “Wow!" in reference to a powerful line or idea in Dickinson, but I rarely do. Why?

Here I will, because this is such a viscerally powerful way of describing love. 

Dickinson’s spark creates a spark in us. That’s what great poets do. They wow us. They set us on fire.  They disturb our “quartz contentment.”

Sent various—scattered ways—

This line mainly gets across the idea that the initial sparks go off in the sky, scattered apart. But I want to stay with this line for a minute and imagine what some of those various and scattered ways might be? How various and scattered we really are. 

We parted as the Central Flint
Were cloven with an Adze—

An adze is an ancient cutting tool similar to an axe but with the cutting edge perpendicular to the handle rather than parallel. We parted as (if) the central Flint/ Were cloven with an Adze. The sparks are created by the adze striking the flint. 

Things get poetic here because the same thing that creates the spark, the adze, also creates separation. The sparks part from the flint as soon as the adze strikes. The idea is that love and longing come as a package deal. 

This duality can also be seen in that word “cloven.” "Cleave" is a classic contranym. Cleave can mean to split apart, which it primarily does here, but it can also mean to cleave together.

I love the rhyme of “Adze” with “Ways.” Following “sparks”, “flints”, “sent”, “scattered”and “Central,” these end rhymes create a soft susurration, a feeling, in this poem, of longing.

Subsisting on the Light We bore
Before We felt the Dark—

There is much to meditate upon in these lines. "Subsisting on the Light We bore." The light is the love we feel for one another. It feeds and nourishes us.

In our minds we see an image in this poem of two sparks that are coming off of the central flint. Their moment of parting is brilliant, but swift. We’ve all seen sparks rising from the flame into the sky, fading out into the dark. It happens quick. Death, or loss, is what the spark fades into.

The rhythm of these two lines is worth noting. In fancy poetic terms we see that the iambic tetrameter enjambs into the following line of trimeter, creating seven quick iambs in a row. This ramping up effect is heightened by the internal rhyme of “we bore” with “Before.” This all sets us up for the pause in the next line:

A Flint unto this Day—perhaps—

Was it so great to fall in love? Would it have been better to stay in the “quartz contentment," in the oneness and hardness of the dark flint?

The “perhaps,” set off there between dashes, has a lot riding on it. Perhaps it would’ve been better to just be in the oneness, the non-duality of that central flint. But then, we would never have fire.

But for that single Spark.

The diverging sparks at the beginning of this poem have reverted back to their single state. This is the state of fire. One spark creates another. The original spark, I suppose, is the force behind that swinging adze.


       -/)dam Wade l)eGraff


P.S. But where did that original fire come from? I’m reminded of a first century BC poem by the Greek poet Meleager.

What I cannot see is how,
From the green wave rising,
Out of water, Oh Aphrodite,
You bred a flame.