The spry Arms of the Wind

The spry Arms of the Wind
If I could crawl between
I have an errand imminent
To an adjoining Zone—

I should not care to stop
My Process is not long
The Wind could wait without the Gate
Or stroll the Town among.

To ascertain the House
And is the soul at Home
And hold the Wick of mine to it
To light, and then return—

    -Fr802, J1103, back of envelope, early 1864


I first read this poem in a book given to me by a HS student as a gift. It’s called “Emily Dickinson’s Envelope Poems” and is comprised of reproductions of poems Dickinson wrote down on envelopes and other scraps of paper lying around the house.* It is one of the best gifts I’ve ever been given. I remember first reading the poem at hand on the back of an envelope in that book and feeling stunned by it. I’ll try to say why.

The spry Arms of the Wind
If I could crawl between

In these opening lines I picture Emily herself crawling through the wild winds of time blowing this way and that. I picture a precocious girl running through the legs of giants who are trying to catch her, but who somehow manages to keep her flame lit in all that candle-snuffing wind. The light of the flame is this poem itself.

I have an errand imminent
To an adjoining Zone—

The poet is on an errand to deliver something to one in an adjoining Zone. The adjoining Zone, you might say, is the very one that the reader is in.**  

I should not care to stop

Dickinson is relentless in getting this imminent message across to the reader's zone. It’s possible that this message had a single recipient originally, and I usually think of Sue, since we know she so often was the poem's intended audience. Sue lived in the adjoining house (zone), but to deliver a poem across to her, past prying eyes, and most especially, past Austin’s, must have felt like a difficult game. (Cue theme music to Mission Impossible.) 

But, of course, Dickinson could also mean she is on an errand to visit ANY reader. Part of Dickinson’s genius is that though her poems often were meant for one specific reader, they were also, somehow, meant for any ideal reader. The ideal reader, at this point, now includes me and you. And that's one of the things that wowed me when I first read the poem on the back of that envelope: the very poem I was reading had to get through the spry arms of the wind to get to me, a century and a half later, which is quite a feat, especially for a poet who refused to publish her poetry.***

Dickinson did “not care to stop” trying to get her message across to Sue, and, then, finally, to us. If you think about it, the poems are still working to get that light across. Dickinson still hasn't stopped. She still cares to keep going.

My Process is not long

What does this mean? Well, for one, it probably didn't take that long to write this poem, nor does it take long to read and receive its light. But one gets a sense here, somehow, of her meaning something more; a whole life project, that is, relative to eternity, still a very short process. Life is very short, but in poetry the light may persist on and on.

The Wind could wait without the Gate
Or stroll the Town among.

If Emily is talking to Sue here, this Wind that could “wait without the Gate/ Or stroll the Town among” might well be Austin. Go paint the town red, Austin! Wait outside of the "gate." Hint hint, wink wink. ****

But if she’s talking to us, then Dickinson is using her skill as a poet to set aside any distractions or barriers between us. She’s gatekeeping. Those who she is sending to “town,” which includes the general population, will likely never see the light of this poem. One thinks here of the famous poem, “The soul selects her own society/ then shuts the door.”

To ascertain the House
And is the soul at Home

To ascertain the House, for me, takes this poem out the personal realm (of Sue and co) and into that of an unknown reader. Whose house is this message going to? The poet is still trying to ascertain who's house it is. The poem, in other words, is trying to find you. And once it does, the question she has for us is, “And is the soul at Home?”

Hello?

Well, if the soul is home, and Emily’s candle has found you, she's going to share her light with you.

And hold the Wick of mine to it
To light, and then return—

This is a very romantic, and even sexy, image if it is written to Sue, or some other lover. But its also quite powerful to think of this poem as Emily lighting us up with a poem about...lighting us up. She holds her essence, the gem-like flame of her poetry, up to our essence, and ignites us. Then, almost as if she was never there, a professed nobody, she returns back to her own Zone.

And we are left holding the flame.

What a poem.

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Candle Flame by Shan Sheehan

* Here's a New Yorker review of The Envelope poems. I disagree with the author of the review, since he doesn't believe there are any masterpieces among these scraps. Is the poem at hand not a masterpiece? It is, in my appreciation. Somehow, it seems to me, most of Dickinson's poems could be justified as masterpieces.

**Zones are an intriguing part of Dickinson’s poetic lexicon. A recent poem, Fr794, for instance, speaks of "ethereal Zones.” Think of zones in terms of Dickinson's fixation on circumference. There is a circumference around a burning candle, a zone of light. 

*** Indeed, publishers could be seen as “spry arms” attempting to block the message from getting to the reader. Normally you would think a publisher would aid a poet, but in Dickinson's case, she saw it the other way around. (See Publishing is the auction of the mind of man.)

**** And Austin did "go to town," where he met the married, but free-loving, Mabel Loomis Todd, who became Sue's nemesis, and later, ironically, Dickinson's biggest champion. It's possible we have Todd to thank for the fact that we have Dickinson's poems at all. Fate is funny.

Notes: This poem is a corollary to Fr322, which is a very deep dive into what that candle means. It's something the angels have labored diligently to light.