It sifts from Leaden Sieves –
It powders all the Wood –
It fills with Alabaster Wool
The Wrinkles of the Road –
It scatters like the Birds –
Condenses like a Flock –
Like Juggler’s Figures situates
Upon a baseless Arc –
It traverses yet halts –
Disperses as it stays –
Then curls itself in Capricorn –
Denying that it was –
F291
(1862) 311
I have been reading lately that figurative language such as similes is
old fashioned. Today we go for the straightforward, the direct. Metaphors have
also been maligned as overly colorful. Bah. Eliminate figurative language and
toss out Shakespeare, the King James, all the famous orators, Greek poets and
playwrights, any poets actually, and any scientist or mathematician worth her
salt. How else do we understand gravity, for example, without a physicist
patiently explaining how it is like a rubber sheet that a bowling ball can
distort, dragging other smaller balls towards its warp.
And
so I like the idea of snow as flour sifting from the “Leaden Sieves” that are a
wintry sky. I like it as talcum powder touching up the chilly woods, or as
white wool smoothed into the rough patches of the road.
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Peace after the storm |
The
unpredictability is carried into the final stanza. The snow travels only to
stop. Scatters only to remain. At last the storm “curls itself in
Capricorn”—and “Capricorn” here refers to the constellation visible in the
northern hemisphere during winter, suggesting the storm innocently curling itself
up into its own heavenly resting place as if nothing had ever happened. It’s an
interesting movement from a lovely landscape of snow to a metaphor for
storm-tossed lives.
Dickinson wrote a longer version of this poem a year or two earlier that
has more landscape and less angst. The first stanza is the same but then it
completely changes. Speaking of an aversion to figurative language and overly
colorful metaphors, I have a hard time visualizing snow as both ruffling the
“Wrists of Posts” and the “Ankles of a Queen.” Each by itself is lovely and
sufficient. Together we have ruffly snow on wooden wrists and aristocratic
ankles. I do, however, like the vision that sees a snow-veiled pastoral field
as “Summer’s empty Room.”
Former version:
It sifts from Leaden Sieves –
It powders all the Wood.
It fills with Alabaster Wool
The Wrinkles of the Road –
It makes an Even Face
Of Mountain, and of Plain –
Unbroken Forehead from the East
Unto the East again –
It reaches to the Fence –
It wraps it Rail by Rail
Till it is lost in Fleeces –
It deals Celestial Vail
To Stump, and Stack – and Stem –
A Summer's empty Room –
Acres of Joints, where Harvests were,
Recordless, but for them–
It Ruffles Wrists of Posts
As Ankles of a Queen –
Then stills its Artisans – like Ghosts –
Denying they have been –
Thank you for placing this poem and many other in context to her other poems and her life; I rely on your commentary daily as I work my way through Em's collected.
ReplyDeleteThank you! And do join in on poem commentary.
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