A Doubt if it be Us

A Doubt if it be Us
Assists the staggering Mind
In an extremer Anguish
Until it footing find -

An Unreality is lent,
A merciful Mirage
That makes the living possible
While it suspends the lives.

     -F903, J859, 1865


It seems clear to me that, for the most part, Dickinson purposely made her poems all-purpose, one size fits all. This one, for example, carries a very general idea, one we can all fit to our own situations: all of us struggle with doubts and insecurities about belonging and being accepted, and all of us find some kind of comfort in a fantasy that helps us deal with this and go on with life. Our doubts lead us to our illusions.

That thought is a gift from Emily. It is worth thinking about. What constitutes the merciful mirage for you? Are you suspending your real life in a fantasy? 

It’s mind-boggling to think about how many ways there are to apply this maxim. Here's one. I recently heard that Gen Z was the “parasocial” generation. I asked my 16 year old daughter Sofia what Parasocial meant. She said it basically meant a one-sided relationship with celebrities on social media.* The rise of AI “friends" is another pertinent example. In both cases real Lives are being suspended. There are countless ways to suspend reality.

Okay, let’s take a deep dive into the poem.

A Doubt if it be Us

We can apply this poem in our own particular way, but still one is always deeply curious what the poem meant to Dickinson. It’s hard to say what the impetus of this poem was though. The word “Doubt” suggests the anguish of not being a "believer." Dickinson’s struggle with her self-exclusion from the church can be seen in many of her letters and poems.

But there might be another genesis for this poem. The word “Us” may point to a relationship. 

If this poem is about love, in the romantic sense of the term, then one wonders what the unreal mirage was that Dickinson escaped to? Who, are what, is the mirage for Dickinson?

Could it have been poetry? Or maybe it was a good novel? “Unreality is lent,” we read, and suddenly we think of a library. Fiction is lent to us from the library. What else could be lending this Unreality? What does it mean that it is lent to us? Are we finding the mirage or is the mirage finding us?

That makes the living possible
While it suspends the lives.

Note the contrasting meanings of “living” and “lives” here. It’s a paradox. How is “living” possible if the “lives” are suspended? The false kind of life, the unreal mirage, isn’t really LIVING.  Instead, it suspends real life.  

“Suspends” is a super interesting word. It has a double meaning. The Unreal mirage suspends our lives, somehow keeps them afloat, but it also causes us to suspend, or put off, really living.

I also hear an echo in this poem of the phrase that was coined by the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his 1817 work Biographia Literaria, which I'm sure Dickinson must have read: "that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith."

We suspend our disbelief, so that we may live. But deep down? We can't believe it.

   -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

*I found this insightful, from First Things:

“Parasocial relationships, ersatz intimacies, are shaping Gen Z in ways we are only beginning to understand. From the rise of finstas (secondary Instagram accounts where users post more personal, unfiltered content) to ceaseless online commentary lamenting the paucity of real-life relationships, it’s clear that Gen Z craves authenticity and connection. And yet members of Gen Z are more likely than those of older generations to bail on commitments and reflexively distrust the very peers they long to connect with. This simultaneous craving for, and retreat from, the real is symptomatic of a crisis of belonging.”

Too little way the House must lie

Too little way the House must lie
From every Human Heart
That holds in undisputed Lease
A white inhabitant—

Too narrow is the Right between—
Too imminent the chance—
Each Consciousness must emigrate
And lose its neighbor once—


     -F902, J911, 1865

Dickinson often does a funny thing where she speaks of her subject in a purposefully indirect way.

House…undisputed Lease…white inhabitant…Right…emigrate…neighbor? For a minute I thought this poem had something to do with white property owners and immigrant rights. That wouldn't be a very Dickinsonion theme though so we are suspect. Sure enough, with a closer reading, this line of thought appears to be a ruse. It seems as if the poem purposely misdirects you. 

This misdirection does a few things. First, I think it is a way of making a meta-commentary on both the subject and the metaphor. It adds a layer of meaning and gives a deeper dimensionality to the poem. (For instance, to follow one possible thread of thought, I think the metaphor in this poem may be making a subtle side-swipe at the narrow-mindedness of the rich in the line, "Too narrow is the Right between—").

Another thing about this misdirection is that, though frustrating, it adds to the power of the poem to pull you in. That puzzle-loving part of us is awakened. We want to see the puzzle, and therefore the poem, completed. But Emily doesn't make it easy. 

After a few readings of the poem, paying attention to all of the clues at our disposal, we come to the conclusion that House means grave. Once we see this, then “white inhabitant” becomes "corpse." Okay, we have a starting point. 

Too little way the House must lie
From every Human Heart

Life is short and the grave is close. The Human Heart brings in the idea of life-force, but also, love.

That holds in undisputed Lease
A white inhabitant—

Does "That" refer to the Human Heart or the grave? Both, perhaps. Both hold a body in undisputed Lease; the Heart in memory, and the grave in physical residence. 

Death as a permanent undisputed lease is a provocative idea. The idea of paying “rent” here has a dark humor. It makes me think, in contrast to an undisputed lease, about how difficult it is to pay rent when you are living. Your rent is always in “dispute” when you are alive.

Too narrow is the Right between—

This line seems to further the “Too little way” in the first line. If it does, then it means something like: our life-time is too narrow between birth and death. In this case, we have a kind of “Right” to life, though it is a very limited one. It also carries the sense of "Right now." This is your in-between, don't miss it.

The line could also easily mean the “narrow” space in the ground, the space of the grave, where the body has its lease. In this case “Right” could mean a number of other possible things, the "Right" to be dead, for instance. More dark humor.

It’s a bit mind-boggling how Dickinson pulls off simultaneous readings. Does the "narrow... between" refer to time or space? And, if so, why is it "Right" between?

Too imminent the chance—

What Dickinson means by “chance” here is pretty hard to pin down too. It might mean something like the “chance” to really live while we still can. This is the reading I prefer. I suppose this exposes my optimistic idealism, because there's another way to read the line. If the thing that is imminent is the House (grave), then it might also be referring to the chance of death. Death is the imminent chance. To think of death as a chance is darkly funny too. It's not a chance, but a certainty.

There is another option I can think of for the meaning of "Chance" here, which is introduced in the next lines about emigrating. "Chance" could refer to escaping the grave after death, the chance of the spirit being released into Paradise. If so, there is perhaps the suggestion that there is something we can do to increase that chance. 

Each Consciousness must emigrate
And lose its neighbor once—

These lines could mean that since our consciousness must emigrate to the house of the grave, we should embrace our neighbors while we can. 

But, following the other track of meaning, these lines could mean that each consciousness must (should) emigrate from the grave to Paradise and lose the neighborhood of corpses it once had.

Both meanings have power.  

The “once” at the end of the poem is poignant. It could mean that we only get "once" to be here, only one go around. But if you take “death” as the “Right” in this poem, then the “once” refers to the joy of leaving this earth and going to paradise, like in the old spiritual: "Some bright morning when this life is over, I'll fly away."

I far prefer the former reading, the one which seems to say to us, "Take the chance of life while you can." But the latter reading, the wish to emigrate from the House of the grave to the spirit in the sky may be more in line with Dickinson’s meaning.

On top of this, there is still that subtext about white inhabitants and emigrating at play in the subtext of this poem, whatever we are to make of that.

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

 

The Soul's distinct connection

The Soul's distinct connection
With immortality
Is best disclosed by Danger
Or quick Calamity—

As Lightning on a Landscape
Exhibits Sheets of Place—
Not yet suspected—but for Flash—
And Click—and Suddenness.


    -F901, J974, 1865


This poem points us to a revelation. Since the landscape is dark, though, we don't know what that revelation is. All we have is the finger pointing into the dark. This poem bears witness to an experience of Truth. The revelation is best described by this witness as "the soul's distinct connection with Immortality."

This revelation, she tells us, is best disclosed by danger and calamity. Dickinson is like Dante returning from hell, albeit with far more brevity in her poetry. What our wizened witness reveals to us in this poem, in the fewest words possible, is just the word Immortality and the realization of our Soul's distinct connection to it. Since these words "Immortality" and "Soul" are quite slippery ones, everything hinges on how you interpret them. 

What is a Soul? What is Immortality? (And how can Emily wield these words with such impunity?)

For most people Immortality means the self goes on forever. Immortality, though, is impossible. It is a self-negating paradox. To be mortal is to have flesh and blood, so one cannot be not mortal. 

The only way one could be immortal would be to live beyond the confines of the body. And for that to be there would have to be some way for the memories of the self to remain beyond the body. Something would have to carry the memories. One wonders, is there a back-up storage for the brain, like memories stored in the Cloud? Perhaps, who knows. Belief in this kind of perpetual self is a mere matter of Faith. 

If Immortality is not some kind of living-forever of the self, then what is it? What kind of immortality is it that Danger and Calamity Reveals? What is this "distinct connection"?

According to this poem, those who have experienced intense Danger and Calamity would best know the answer to this question. I don’t think I have ever quite felt this myself. I’ve felt terror, and have experienced some horrible things, but none of them made me see a flash of Immortality lighting up the landscape. On the contrary, Danger and Calamity have the opposite effect on me. They make me want to cling tighter to the temporal.

What I feel in moments of Danger and Calamity is a deeper sense of what is real and meaningful to me, a deeper connection to loved ones and to the earth and stars beyond. Perhaps love comprises a kind of immortality then? 

Yesterday Tom C, faithful Prowling Bee reader and writer, was in Queens and paid a call. We had a talk about this poem, since I had been thinking about it. He told me his experience of going through grief and how it gave him a real sense that Love is permanent. Love doesn't diminish, said Tom.  

There is something immortal in that feeling of human connection. In one of my favorite Dickinson poems she states that the smallest human heart’s extent reduces Infinity to nothing:

The Life we have is very great.
The Life that we shall see
Surpasses it, we know, because
It is Infinity.

But when all Space has been beheld
And all Dominion shown
The smallest Human Heart’s extent
Reduces it to none.

I’ve long been fascinated by Dickinson's conception of immortality.  It goes beyond the usual definition of the word. In one of her letters she writes, "It may be she came to show you Immortality." I suspect she was speaking of a young one who died. But she might just as well be speaking of herself too. So what is it she came to show us? The following quotes are all taken from her letters.

"No heart that break
but further went than
Immortality."

"Emerson's intimacy with
his "Bee" only
immortalized him."

"The 'infinite beauty' of
which you speak comes
too near to seek."

"Show me eternity, and
I will show you Memory-
Be you - While I am Emily -
Be next - what you have ever been -
Infinity."

"There is no first, or
last, in Forever-
It is Centre, there,
all the time."

"The risks of immortality
are perhaps its charm."

"A letter always seemed
to me like Immortality,
for is it not the Mind
alone, without corporeal friend?"

"Dear friend, can you walk,
were the last words that I wrote her.
Dear friend, I can fly-
her immortal reply."

"An hour for books
those enthralling friends
the immortalities"

"The immortality of flowers
must enrich our own."

"Show me eternity, and
I will show you Memory-
Be you - While I am Emily -
Be next - what you have ever been -
Infinity."

"Amazing human heart-
a syllable can make
to quake like jostled tree-
what Infinite - for thee!"

What do you make of all that? Immortality is tied in with a broken heart, with intimacy with a bee, with the cycles of nature, with memory, with what you have always been, with the eternal moment, with risks, with the written word (letters and books), with flight, flowers, and the power of the human heart.

She’s getting at the circumference of something profound here, and this poem is just another clue: Danger and Calamity.

***

Okay, all that said, and that was a lot, one thing we haven't broached yet is the word "distinct." Distinct means "identifiable, separate, clearly different from others." So then, Immortality, in this poem, is either about our distinct selves going on forever into the future, or its about the way we hold the distinction of each other in a forever way in our heart. I suspect for Dickinson, it is about the latter.

***

Another thing worth mentioning here is the amazingly cool imagery of this poem, the way it conflates lightning and photography and spiritual insight together into one thing. It’s an awesome way to conceive of something larger than what it is we can ordinarily perceive. The lightning flash is like a 3D photograph, but of a temporal landscape of Immortality! Whoa. 

     -/)dam Wade DeGraff

Twas awkward, but it fitted me —

Twas awkward, but it fitted me —
An Ancient fashioned Heart —
Its only lore — its Steadfastness —
In Change — unerudite —

It only moved as do the Suns —
For merit of Return —
Or Birds — confirmed perpetual
By Alternating Zone —

I only have it not Tonight
In its established place —
For technicality of Death —
Omitted in the Lease —


     -F900, J973, 1865



'Twas awkward, but it fitted me —

An Ancient fashioned Heart —

I love "Ancient fashioned Heart." The heart is not just old-fashioned, it's Ancient fashioned. That word Ancient is so deep in time. It's like saying, "My love has been around forever, and therefore it's not going anywhere soon." 

Why is this ancient fashioned heart awkward though? I think Dickinson is implying it's not the newest thing that counts, the new interesting person, it’s the tried and true, the old friend, the society of the soul. 

This "awkward" business is funny. Dickinson's poetry is awkward not because it’s old-fashioned, but rather because it’s always new and difficult to get used to. Suffice to say, the most important thing is that the heart, and the poetry too, are ever true:

Its only lore — its Steadfastness —

This line is funny also, because there is SO much lore that has been created about Emily Dickinson. Scores of lore. Emilycore. And yet here it is as if she is saying that you can set all that aside. The only lore she has for us is her Steadfastness. It's remarkable too because here she still is, her Ancient heart still travelling into the future, steadfast as ever.

In Change — unerudite —
 
Yet another funny line. To be erudite is to have deep and arcane knowledge about subject. It’s to be in the know. By saying “In Change — unerudite —" it’s as if she is saying that change, the newest knowledge, is not what she knows about. Maybe one can read a hint of fear here. The poem takes a turn at the end, and so we know change is imminent for this Steadfast heart.

It only moved as do the Suns —
For merit of Return —

Are you kidding me with these lines? Dickinson aligns her Ancient heart with the Sun. We get the idea that Dickinson's Heart moves as the Sun does. And the reason it moves is merely for the merit of returning again. But wait? What? The sun doesn’t move, does it? Rather the earth moves around the sun. The line is a kind of trick of perspective. Rather it is the lover, the reader, that is always returning to the Steadfast Sun of Emily’s Ancient Heart.

Still, this idea of moving, for the sake of returning, whether it is the sun or the earth, is shrewd. Dickinson is declaring eternal steadfast love, but she’s also acknowledging the dance.

"It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing"

Or Birds — confirmed perpetual
By Alternating Zone —

The birds perpetually fly south for the winter and north in the summer. Now Dickinson’s heart isn’t just the Sun, it’s the "confirmed perpetual" movement of life toward the Sun at all times, following it just as the birds do, from north to south in the winter and back again in the summer. 

The change is all contained in a larger love, just like the seasons are overseen by the sun. It’s a wonderful way to look at both the heart and the sun. The two become one, the heart and the Sun.

I only have it not Tonight
In its established place —

Ugh, crushing lines. The way Dickinson wields a “not” is wicked. (See F891.) Dickinson’s heart is steadfast, so why isn’t in its established place? It must be because the lover’s heart wasn't as constant? 

For technicality of Death —
Omitted in the Lease —

Either someone literally died, and Emily’s Steadfast heart can’t follow them into death, or for some reason the other person could not be steadfast in return. (Who knows what that reason might be, but it's worth mentioning, perhaps, that Dickinson's two greatest loves, Sue Gilbert and Charles Wadsworth, were married to other people.)

Here Dickinson switches her tone from the eternal language of nature, of birds and suns, to a legal language. Her father and brother were lawyers, so this kind of terminology in her poems often has, I've noticed, a bit of a bite. The poem begins so earnestly and grand and ends in a "technicality? " A broken lease due to the cause of death? 

There’s the tone to me in those last lines of an icy finality. Either Emily’s begrudging the business-like transaction of death, or she's bitter because of a lover's neglect, as if to say, hey! you broke a contract with the Sun!

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Our Lady of Sorrows at the Church of the True Cross, Salamanca, Spain

Experience is the Angled Road

Experience is the Angled Road
Preferred against the Mind
By — Paradox — the Mind itself —
Presuming it to lead

Quite Opposite — How Complicate
The Discipline of Man —
Compelling Him to Choose Himself
His Preappointed Pain —

  

         -F899, J910, 1865

The first thing that stops me in this poem is the adjective "Angled." In a letter to T.W. Higginson Dickinson writes, "I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine." "Angled" starts to shine when you look at it. 

Experience is the Angled Road 

Here "Angled" means that the road isn't straight. But Dickinson could've used other words, like windy for instance. Why use "Angle?" Well, for one, it gives the impression of a sudden sharp turn. Experience leads to sharp, painful, turns. But there is another meaning of "Angled Road," which is the idea of something being "angled" for. That one word carries the "paradox" of this poem. You are not expecting the road to angle, and yet you are angling for just that. Neat.

The next thing that stops me is to wonder what is doing the preferring?

Experience is the Angled Road
Preferred against the Mind
By — Paradox — the Mind itself —

Is it “Paradox” or the “Mind" that is doing the preferring? It depends on how you punctuate the lines. Both readings are fitting, but one has an emphasis on fate and one on freewill, which is an undercurrent throughout this poem. Either the mind prefers something against itself (against its own desire,) or the principle of Paradox itself is preferring it for us, because that’s just how life is. 

Either way the first stanza is basically saying that Experience is a road with surprising turns, and though the mind would prefer an easier and more straight-forward path our actual experience takes us a different way.

Experience goes against what the mind thinks it wants and yet it is still preferred. Why? How could we prefer something that we don’t want? 

No pain, no gain. We choose experiences we know may hurt, like starting a new relationship after a painful breakup, or committing to something grueling like marathon training, because they promise us meaning and growth, and maybe even self-respect.

Quite Opposite— How Complicate

It's fun to say this line, the way the K, P and T sounds interweave, and the rhyme of Opposite and Complicate. "Quite opposite— How Complicate." 

There is a great scene in the movie "The Five-Year Engagement" where Jason Segal is telling Emily Blunt why instant gratification can be a wiser choice than self-discipline.

It's complicated!

The word "Complicate" also describes the syntax of this poem. That may or not be on purpose, but it's apt.

          — How Complicate
The Discipline of Man —

The word "Discipline" clues you into the idea in this poem that something is being "angled" for. The complication is that we are of two minds; satisfaction in the moment as opposed to a long term gain. 

Compelling Him to Choose Himself
His Preappointed Pain —

How complicated human discipline becomes, since our goals compel us to choose our own suffering. We are forced to participate in our own struggle.

This poem is funny. It's a God's eye view of the tragi-comedy of being human. The Self must act in spite of the self to become the Self. Haha! Good luck, humans!

On one hand the mind doesn’t want pain, especially in lieu of pleasure, but on the other hand, there are great benefits to be had from choosing pain. So what's a girl to do?

"Preappointed" is another word that stops me cold. Does "Preappointed" mean that the pain is fated? On one hand it is probably true that pain is fated no matter what "road" you choose. But here "Preappointed" seems directly tied into discipline, so the one doing the preappointing is either fate or the self, it's up to you. Have your pain now or later. Just like with the word "Angled," this word encompasses the paradox of this poem. 

The question this poem begs for me is what it is that is "Compelling" us to "Choose" pain. This is a question worth leaving open.

       -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S.  A story I love that asks the same open question is Cream by Haruki Murakami. Check it out if you get half a chance.

P.P.S. I've never heard of the Lithuanian poet, Jonas Zdanys, but I dig the title of his collected poems, "The Angled Road." From a review of the book by Ken Hada, "Emily Dickinson’s 'angled road' of experience is the touchstone for Zdanys, her lines declaring a “paradox” that surpasses intellectual abstraction to confirm the authority of art.' According to Hada then, Art is the thing that compels us to choose pain. That's one angle anyway.

An Hour is a Sea

An Hour is a Sea
Between a few, and me —
With them would Harbor be —


      -F898, J825, 1865


This poem is similar in content to the famous poem Wild Nights, Wild Nights. For comparison, let’s look at that one, written four or five years earlier:

Wild Nights – Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile – the Winds –
To a Heart in port –
Done with the Compass –
Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden –. Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor – Tonight –
In Thee!

It's a similar idea right? But "Wild Nights" sweeps you away. It’s full of anguish, but it’s also very romantic. 

But this poem on the other hand? There is something in the extreme compression that adds a note of desperation to it. The poem almost seems like it's in a hurry, desperate for that hour to be over. The three lines are like three final gasps of air before the poet sinks down into that Sea.

Those three perfect end rhymes of Sea/me/be seem cloying at first, almost lazy, but when given an emotional emphasis they begin to sound plaintive, almost like a dolphin cry: eee eee eee.

An Hour is a Sea

Dickinson morphs time into space. She was ahead of Einstein! E=MC2 and relativity are both at play here. Time, a mere hour, expands into the great distance and depth of an unfathomable sea.

Between a few, and me —

“A few” is a phrase that makes you wonder; not one, not many, but a few. For what it's worth, this poem was sent by Emily to her beloved friend and sister Susan Gilbert Dickinson. So who are the few? Maybe it was Sue’s family, including her brother Austin, that Emily was missing, but maybe it was just two, Emily and Sue.

With them would Harbor be  —

If the hour is a sea, then being with these few is a harbor from that seeming endlessness of time.

The startling thing here, to me, is the bareness. I think of that phrase from Dickinson’s poem about a snake, “zero at the bone.” This poem is zero at the bone. It’s as if it is all she could muster. 


    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

A lovely piece of music called "An Hour is a Sea" by Dextro

P.S.  David Preest's notes on this poem are informative, "When Sue was staying with her sister, Martha Smith, in New York, Emily concluded a short letter (L312) to her with this poem. She led up to the poem with the words, ‘[I] turn my thoughts [to you] without a Whip – so well they follow you.’ An hour had also felt long in poem J781. The harbour is reminiscent of the last two lines of poem J249 and the last lines of poems J368 and J506."

P.P.S. Here is a heartfelt response to this poem from another blogger who just goes by Possibility.  

She sped as Petals of a Rose

She sped as Petals of a Rose
Offended by the Wind—
A frail Aristocrat of Time
Indemnity to find—
Leaving on nature—a Default
As Cricket or as Bee—
But Andes in the Bosoms where
She had begun to lie—


     -F897, J991, 1865


For this poem we are indebted to this note from David Preest: “Emily sent a copy of this poem to Sue on the death of her niece, also called Susan, at two years of age.”

This context adds gravitas. Let’s take it a few lines at a time.

She sped as Petals of a Rose
Offended by the Wind—

A two year old girl’s life is compared to rose petals, silky-soft, delicate and beautiful. But what is this Wind? And why does it offend? The Wind here probably refers to the illness that took the child’s life. But the way Dickinson framed it, as the flower being offended, makes it seem more like a soul peeped out into the world, looked around and was like, nope, this world with all of its storms of sorrow offends me, I’m out of here.

Notice how this poem grabs you right away with its imagery and music. The lines speed by, but they have such a beautiful sound as they go with those little detonations of D sounds studded through them. “She speD as peTals of a rose/ offenDeD by the winD.” The D sounds continue throughout the poem. I think that the D sound comes up often in poems about Death, echoing the sickening sound of "DeaD." (See Gwendolyn Brooks poem "the mother" for a powerful example of this).

A frail Aristocrat of Time

An aristocrat is a funny way to think of a child, but Emily was always inverting status words in this manner. Queens and Emperors are something wholly different in the spiritual realm of Dickinson’s lexicon. What does it mean to be an Aristocrat of time? An aristocrat is historically defined by hereditary rank, noble titles, and landed wealth. This child was born of wealth, but not the monetary kind. The fact that this child was an aristocrat OF time is the little tell here. Just being alive, it would seem, and taking part in time makes us rich. That’s what we inherit just by being born.

Indemnity to find—

“Indemnity” means a payment for loss. The child, in dying, is seeking some kind of compensation, perhaps spiritual peace, or maybe transcendence beyond time.

It’s almost as if Dickinson is hinting that the child is better off. She was offended by the Wind, so she quit time and looked for her treasure outside of it, in a place without all those cruel Winds. And yet those winds offend for a good reason. Look what they are preventing! Life, in all its potential beauty. 

Leaving on nature—a Default
As Cricket or as Bee—

Default is in the same realm of language as Indemnity, the legal language of money.

It implies a failure to fulfill an obligation, or something left undone. But here Dickinson implies that because Nature is so vast, this default can be compared to the loss of a cricket or a bee, something hardly noticed. But…

But Andes in the Bosoms where
She had begun to lie—

But the child is as large as the Andean mountains in the bosoms (hearts) of those where she had “begun to lie.” One can imagine the two year old still lying on the mother’s bosom, nursing. To that mother there is nothing larger than this child. Unlike the fragile rose petals, to the mother this child is as solid and large as an entire mountain range.

I think that “begun” is the most poignant word here for me. The child was just beginning, and like that she is gone.

I have a friend, the critic and poet Lytle Shaw, who says that Emily Dickinson's poems are weird in the right ways. This poem is a good example of what it is I think he means. It's an odd one, with its mix of natural imagery and legal financial terms, with its idea of a flower being offended by wind, or of being an aristocrat OF time, or of seeking compensation elsewhere for defaulting on life, or even the idea of the relative worth of a child to nature vs. man. And of course the language is always weird and sticky. "Andes in the Bosoms" is such an inimitable, and indelible, way to put it.  

But this is part of what makes the poem so affecting. Somewhere (somebody help me out here) Roland Barthes puts forward the idea that condolences have to be expressed in a unique way to be effective. A Hallmark card isn't going to cut it. So being weird, then, may be seen as an essential quality of being real, which is in turn an essential part of being felt. 

-/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Notes


1. I’d be willing to bet this poem was sent with roses.

2. I think this poem is influenced by and echoes Emily’s own feelings about the loss of a major love in her life, one which was so painful in the extreme for her that it seems to drive much of her poetry. It's not hard to read this poem as a love poem to Sue Sr. in disguise.

3. Judith Farr in a deeply-felt appreciation of this poem, remarks on the poignancy of the last line in a society where the rate of infant mortality was terrifyingly high.

Purple is – fashionable twice –

Purple is – fashionable twice –
This season of the year,
And when a soul perceives itself
To be an Emperor.

     -Fr896, J980, 1865

My first question is, what season of the year is fashionably purple? Spring? Autumn?

My guess is that it is spring. This poem is saying that purple is naturally fashionable twice, first in the spring, and then again when the soul perceives that it is an Emperor. 

Autumn could make sense too though. There is a tradition of reading the late year as a kind of earned sovereignty. August has a deeper purple: wine-dark harvest tones. 

But “Fashionable” doesn’t sound like autumn to me. Fall tends to carry a sense of august inevitability, not trendiness. “Fashionable” feels lighter, as if the purple is in vogue, not hard-won.

It also makes sense that this season would be spring because it is traditionally associated with rebirth, which aligns with that sudden sense of inner grandeur Dickinson is describing.

When the early purple flowers are blooming the soul suddenly feels grand as “an Emperor."

And maybe Dickinson is also letting us know that this feeling won't last forever. Normally one thinks of the soul as being beyond the the temporary. But here, it is reversed; feeling and soul are inextricably intertwined.

After all, Dickinson doesn’t say the soul is an emperor, only that it feels like one. It perceives itself so.  This feeling is seasonal and fashionable (temporary and subject to change) and self-perceived (possibly illusory).

Maybe the purple feeling of the soul is only temporary, and self-perceived, but it's still awesome. And just like Spring, it's bound to come around again. For a season at least the soul rules. 

     
    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

My neighbor Quinn O'Sullivan took this video of spring purple in Sunnyside for Prowling Bee. 

The background song "Turned to Dust" is by Bonnie Prince Billy and Ronnie Bowman

Notes

1. David Preest agrees Dickinson must be talking about Spring: 

"'This season of the year’ is presumably spring. When she described the coming of spring in poem 140 Emily wrote that a ‘Tyrian light’ the village fills, ancient Tyre being famous for its purple dye. She also said in the same poem that spring was the season of ‘a purple finger [of the violet] on the slope.’"

2. I found a delightful paper on the subject, a deep dive the different moods and meanings of purple in Dickinson’s poems. 

3. From the above article I learned that Dickinson refers to purple in her poems more than any other color. It’s mentioned in 54 of her poems. That would make a good little book of poems if anyone's got the time and inclination. It would look fantastic too, with photos fitting every poem in all shades of purple.