Her final Summer was it—

Her final Summer was it—
And yet We guessed it not—
If tenderer industriousness
Pervaded Her, We thought

A further force of life
Developed from within—
When Death lit all the shortness up
It made the hurry plain—

We wondered at our blindness
When nothing was to see
But Her Carrara Guide post—
At Our Stupidity—

When duller than our dullness
The Busy Darling lay
So busy was she—finishing—
So leisurely—were We—


     -Fr847, J795, Fascicle 38, 1864

I asked the poet Juliana Spahr if she would care to comment on this poem as a guest blogger for Prowling Bee and she graciously said yes. I thought of Juliana when I read this poem because of the line "If tenderer industriousness." It reminded me of her internet handle, "King Tender." You can check out some of Spahr's poems on the Poetry Foundation website. She has several terrific books available too. I recommend them all. 

       -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Here's Juliana's post on Fr846:

This is an elegy of sorts. Many elegies, as they remember the dead, move from lament to
consolation. But this poem instead focuses on the narrator’s inability to recognize the death that
was to come. Still an elegy, just one that is about the human tendency to deny or overlook death.
The first stanza is about how no one realized it was “her final Summer.” It uses anastrophe to
express this delayed recognition. “Her final Summer” arriving before the verb that calls it into
being. The guess of “We guessed” showing up before its negation. The “Tender industriousness”
before she was “Pervaded.” And if the first stanza is considered in isolation, then it looks like
“We thought” is possibly about the “tenderer industriousness” that “Pervaded Her,” yet another
anastrophe.

Then the second stanza breaks this anastrophe as it describes the “further force of life” that death
exposed. Death becomes a metaphor, a source of light that reveals the truth, one that makes “the
hurry plain,” or clearly exposes.

The third stanza has the bereaved examining their blindness now that death has arrived and shed
some light on the whole situation. In the third line of this stanza there is another metaphor of
sorts. Dickson calls the tombstone a “Carrara Guide post.”

Metaphors open up poems, require readers to make some connections on their own. They delight
most when they combine two things to make a third thing. Here, Carrara is combined with Guide
to describe post. And this post, or tombstone, reminds us of our stupidity, makes clear what we
would not see before.

This one also opens up the poem’s myopic attention. Suddenly, a location: Carrara.
Marble has been excavated from Carrara, Italy for thousands of years. The Pantheon is made
from Carrara marble. Michelangelo’s David and the Pieta also. Carrara marble is prized for being
white, fine-grained, easily polished, bright in other words. Soft too, so soft that acid rain
dissolves it. It is rarely used for ordinary tombstones, especially in the US. Granite, weather-
resistant, durable, dull gray is more common. So here, another moment of light made by death.
Then, a “Guide”... The capitalization allows it to be a title, as in describing a possible
“Guidebook to Carrara.” This imaginary book might describe how to tour the quarries, might
illuminate the anarchist history of the area, might highlight the difficult and dangerous labor of
working in the quarries. This history is, of course, not in the poem. But it is there as a sort of
ghost.

The last stanza has “the Busy Darling” lying in state. And reminds that she worked all summer,
while we all relaxed. It is possible to read that last line--“So leisurely—were We—”--as yet
another anastrophe. But it also makes sense to read it as aposiopesis, a thought left incomplete,
that implies that we have so much guilt about enjoying our summer that to articulate its pleasures
would be a violation. Traditional elegies move toward acceptance. This one stays suspended in
guilt, refuses to articulate the leisures of summer to pursue an honesty about the disorientating
moment when death is arriving and we are refusing to see it.

I had a friend recently die. They seemed to know they were going to die and kept saying
goodbye and I kept telling them that while we all die, they were far from death. I kept insisting
that we had much time left to really say goodbye, we did not need to do it that day. I am not sure
what I would have done differently if I had been willing to admit that they might die. I have
wrestled with how unfathomable I have found the death of a friend.

My blindness. My stupidity. This poem describes these things. But it does not tell us what to do
with them. It neither absolves nor condemns. Instead, it describes.

      -Juliana Spahr

A Drop fell on the Apple Tree—

A Drop fell on the Apple Tree—
Another—on the Roof—
A Half a Dozen kissed the Eaves—
And made the Gables laugh—

A few went out to help the Brook
That went to help the Sea—
Myself Conjectured were they Pearls—
What Necklaces could be—

The Dust replaced, in Hoisted Roads—
The Birds jocoser sung—
The Sunshine threw his Hat away—
The Bushes— spangles flung—

The Breezes brought dejected Lutes—
And bathed them in the Glee—
The Orient showed a single Flag,
And signed the fête away—

    -Fr846, J794, Fascicle 38, 1864

Sometimes rain is seen as a drag, a destroyer of picnics and ender of ballgames, but in Dickinson it's the life of the party, the belle of the ball. The letter-downer has become the lifter-upper. 

This poem starts just like the rain does, with a single "Drop," which falls on the Apple Tree. Like many lines of Dickinson, this one could be taken alone as a fragment and still have an aura to it. Somehow from that one drop comes apples, and, by extension, all of the fruit in the world. Then there is all of that metaphoric weight to apple trees, especially in the Judeo-Christian mythology of the Garden of Eden. And yet it is also just a single drop of water falling on, ostensibly, a real apple tree.

The second line has metaphoric weight too. Another drop falls on the "Roof." The roof offers protection and there you are, under it, dry. The poet Marie Howe, who won the Pulitzer prize for poetry last year, has an entire poem exploring just this idea of the comfort a tree offers us in protection from the rain. It’s a feeling unto itself.

When the rain comes it starts drop by drop, and then suddenly there are half a dozen. The third line,

A Half a Dozen kissed the Eaves—

turns this poem in an orgy of sorts. We have a sudden multiplicity of kissers and kissees. Note the pun of Eaves/Eves here. Coming so soon after “apple tree” it seems likely that Dickinson is playing on the biblical Eve here. The line is transgressive, triply so. First there is the idea of the “fall of man” and all this entails. And, moreover, there is the reveling in the sudden wet soddenness of this fall, and finally, we note, there is no Adam, just Eves!

The final line of the first stanza adds to the merry mirth of the poem. 

And made the Gables laugh—

The rain brings the party, one that will soon become replete with hats and pearl necklaces, with the singing and flinging of spangles.

This joy of laughter leads us to the second the stanza,

A few went out to help the Brook
That went to help the Sea—

The single drop of this poem has made a difference. It has helped the brook help the sea. What a beautiful way to show us what one drop of wet effort may do in this world to be of service. 

We’ve quickly moved from a drop of water to a half dozen drops to a brook to an entire ocean.

Myself Conjectured were they Pearls—

What Necklaces could be—

These lines recall one of my all time favorite Dickinson poems, Fr597, “Tis little I — could care for Pearls —/ Who own the Ample sea —” In both poems there is the idea that the glories of nature outshine the most expensive jewelry. The comparison helps us see the beauty of the raindrops with new eyes.

The Dust replaced, in Hoisted Roads—

“Hoisted roads” is an intriguing phrase. Why is the road hoisted? It could mean that the dust that had risen (had been hoisted up) is now settled again. But it might also mean that the road has been lifted up by the addition of the rain, a kind of rejuvenation. This second meaning is more in keeping with the lifting of spirits that pervades the rest of the poem. At any rate, it seems like the rain has stopped now. The dust has settled and...

The Birds jocoser sung—

The rain has now stopped and the birds perk up and sing with a bit more spirit. Jocoser is a fun word and fits the vibe of the poem. The sun has now come out, and

The Sunshine threw his Hat away—

The personification in this poem is really helping me see things in a new way. I’ve never thought of the sound of rain on a roof as laughter before. And I’ve never thought of the sun coming out from under a cloud as the sunshine throwing its hat away. I love that the sun doesn’t just put his hat down. He throws it away. It is act of being carefree, like a new graduate throwing her hat after graduation.

The Bushes— spangles flung—

I think it must be the sun that is flinging the spangles on the bush. The sun, peeking out from the clouds, is shining on the wet leaves of the bush. It is as if the bushes are wearing gowns that sparkle in the sunlight.

The sound of the word “spangle” is echoed throughout the poem, in apple, gable, single, flag, flung, glee and even in necklaces and replaced. It’s as if the poem itself were spangled with all those L sounds following consonants.

The Breezes brought dejected Lutes—

And bathed them in the Glee—

The breezes have a sad music in them, "dejected Lutes." This line, perhaps, brings us to the reader of the poem, or even the writer. A breeze has brought our dejected selves to this poem, but this poem has bathed us in glee of rain.

 

We can begin to see what the one drop might represent in the poem, or, rather, that this poem represents a drop. This poem lifts us up through its spirit. It may be just a drop, but it becomes part of the brook leading us to a sea of pearls. Our dust is more settled. Our dejected songs have been bathed in glee.

The Orient showed a single Flag,
And signed the fête away—

The sun has started to set and the flag of the sunset is now upon the reader, signalling that the party is over. We fall asleep, lifted into dreams.

It's a wonderful way to start Fascicle 38. 


        -/)dam Wade l)eGraff