As One does Sickness over

As One does Sickness over
In convalescent Mind,
His scrutiny of Chances
By blessed Health obscured —

As One rewalks a Precipice
And whittles at the Twig
That held Him from Perdition
Sown sidewise in the Crag

A Custom of the Soul
Far after suffering
Identity to question
For evidence't has been —

         -F917, J957, sheet 11, 1865

Surviving illness brings a heightened awareness of vulnerability. That's what this poem is about on the surface. Under the surface I think there is wrestling here with the idea of Grace too. 

Let’s break it down.

As One does Sickness over
In convalescent Mind,

The body is convalescing, getting better, and the mind reflects back upon the illness. But the phrase “does Sickness over” gives you a sense that reflecting on sickness is itself a sickness. You are doing Sickness all over again. And for what? It's like you are stuck in the suffering.

His scrutiny of Chances
By blessed Health obscured —

Upon recovering from an illness, presumably a serious one, we think about the chance of death. I am reminded of the classic doctor’s diagnosis here; “Ms. Vinrace, you have a 50/50 chance.” But there is something else going on too I think. The idea that these “Chances” are, normally, by “blessed Health obscured” means that it takes an illness to bring this "chance" to light. Dickinson's poetry often causes me to stop and really look at a word. I pick it up and turn it around. "Chance" can mean probability, but it can also mean “risk” and “opportunity.” We have a "chance" to live, so we have to take this "chance." We can easily forget that when we are in "blessed health." It takes an illness to wake us up to it.

Another meaning of “chance,” though, is randomness. I think this meaning plays into the poem in the second stanza when we are presented with the idea of contingency. Is there a purpose to life, or is it random?

As One rewalks a Precipice
And whittles at the Twig
That held Him from Perdition
Sown sidewise in the Crag

Dickinson presents us with an analogy. Scrutinizing the recovery of an illness is like falling off of a cliff, being saved by a twig on the side of the cliff, and then going back to examine the twig. Not only do we look at the twig, but we “whittle” at it too. That’s interesting. It suggests that by examining the the thing that saved us, we are actually making it more fragile. There is a sickness not only to examining the sickness, but perhaps even to looking at what kept us alive.

The word Perdition here adds a whole new element to the poem. Perdition primarily refers to eternal damnation; the state of being spiritually lost and punished forever after death. So now there is the suggestion that we are not just talking about a physical illness, but a spiritual one. If this is so, then the twig that saved us is no longer a thing of “chance,” but an instrument of Grace. This is why it has been “sown” into the crag, as if by design. The message I get is, don't question Grace or you will whittle it down to nothing.

“Sown” is an interesting word choice, but so is “sidewise.” It makes me think of Emily’s love of the word “slant" and these famous lines from a much later poem by Dickinson,

Tell all the truth but tell it slant -
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise

The twig that saves us has been sown there, but it isn't coming in from an angle we can recognize. It's coming in sidewise. 

A Custom of the Soul
Far after suffering

Custom is another word you can pick up and turn around. I think the “does sickness over” and “whittles at the twig” both give us a sense that it might be better not to reflect upon the illness. Better to move forward.

Identity to question
For evidence't has been —

Here you are questioning identity itself. The poem turns existential. If I can die so easily, or, worse, become damned for eternity, then who am I? Does life have any meaning at all?

But then we remember all those twigs sown sideways into all of those crags, the millions of chances that had to be surmounted just for us to be here in the first place. With this knowledge perhaps we can simply continue the journey.

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

  

P.S. An old joke:

Jack was walking along a steep cliff one day. He accidentally got too close to the edge and fell. On the way down he grabbed a branch, which temporarily stopped his fall. He looked down and to his horror saw that the canyon dropped straight down for more than a thousand feet.

He couldn’t hang onto the branch forever, and there was no way for him to climb up the steep wall of the cliff. So Jack began yelling for help, hoping that someone passing by would hear and rescue him.

“HELP! HELP! Is anyone up there?”

He yelled for a long time, but no one heard him. He was about to give up when he heard a voice. “Jack, Jack. Can you hear me?”

“Yes, yes! I can hear you. I’m down here!”

“I can see you, Jack. Are you all right?”

“Yes, but who are you, and where are you?”

“I am the Lord, Jack. I’m everywhere.”

“The Lord? You mean, GOD?”

“That’s Me.”

“I’ll do anything, Lord. Just tell me what to do.”

“Okay. Let go of the branch.”

“What?”

“I said, let go of the branch. Just trust Me. Let go.”

There was a long silence.

Finally Jack yelled, “IS ANYONE ELSE UP THERE?”

Drab Habitation of Whom?

Drab Habitation of Whom?
Tabernacle or Tomb —
Or Dome of Worm —
Or Porch of Gnome —
Or some Elf's Catacomb?

     -F916,  J893,  Sheet 11, 1865

This poem is only six lines long, but it spans religion, mortality, biology, folklore, magic and mystery all at once.

Drab Habitation of Whom?

In the first line an existential question is posed. Who are we in this drab habitation? We are presented with an open-ended riddle. Eventually this question turns toward death, but not yet. A "Whom," after all, follows from being someone, from being alive. If there is a habitation, there is living going on. So the question is posed to you. You look around the room to see... Whom? There is no one else around. Perhaps you notice that your habitation is a bit drabber than it needs to be.

Tabernacle or Tomb —

This is confusing at first because a Tabernacle and a Tomb are "Whats" not "Whoms." So I think we are to understand that the place defines the inhabitant, or, put another way, the inhabitant defines the place. Is the habitation you are living in a sacred place where God’s presence resides or a dead place of nothingness? Is your room more tabernacle or tomb?

Or Dome of Worm —

Now the riddle is revealed. The "drab place" must be a burial mound, for what else could a dome of worm be? “Dome of Worm” is a memorable phrase. The body is shown to be, on one level, mere worm-food.

The word “worm” seems to derive from the “tomb” in the line above, but the word “Dome” ties back to “Tabernacle.” This doubling up of metaphor is cunning. We can infer that the church itself may be infested with worms.

Or Porch of Gnome —

Now we are back among the living again, but not among the real, not in any factual realm. The Gnome, though, for a moment of inspired imagination, is at home, and this mound is his porch. It’s magical, like a child's fairy garden. The imagination has transformed the worm-riddled mound into something wondrous. 

But maybe this fantasy is naive? This thought sets us up for a return to the dark. Is this some magical creature's porch, 

Or some Elf's Catacomb?

One way you can read this poem is as a question: is there life after life? That's a mystery that occupied Dickinson, as it does so many of us. But another way to read this poem, one that is, I think, more valuable, is to ask: is there life among the living? Is life merely a set-up for the harsh reality of being worm-food, or is it lit up with the magic of the imagination? 

I think this poem has it both ways. It acknowledges reality, but also dwells in possibility. 

We go back to the beginning of the poem and take note again of that "Whom." It's not “What” life and death are that is being defined here, it’s “Whom.” The power to transform one's home is, at least on this side of the veil, ours to own. 

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Notes: 

1. "Porch of Gnome" may be riffing off of the idea of a "porch gnome," a fad which was already in vogue in the 19th century and is still popular today. 

2. The word gnome was coined by the 16th-century Swiss alchemist Paracelsus. He derived it from the Greek word genomos, meaning "earth-dweller"

3. The form of this poem, 33223, is the same as a limerick. (I don't think I've seen Dickinson use it before?) The effect is to heighten the fairy-tale elements of the poem. 

4. The child-like word-play in this poem is a lot of fun. Whom/ Tomb/ Dome/ Worm/ Gnome/ some/ comb. The over-riding sound is OM, the sacred Hindu syllable. I doubt Dickinson was familiar with this Indian root-word, so I think it is more likely the poem functions as a meditation on the word “Home.” That word is conspicuously absent here. We have "habitation" followed by a series of words that rhyme with home.

 

What shall I do when the Summer troubles—

What shall I do when the Summer troubles—
What, when the Rose is ripe—
What when the Eggs fly off in Music
From the Maple Keep?

What shall I do when the Skies a'chirrup
Drop a Tune on me—
When the Bee hangs all Noon in the Buttercup
What will become of me?

Oh, when the Squirrel fills His Pockets
And the Berries stare
How can I bear their jocund Faces
Thou from Here, so far?

'Twouldn't afflict a Robin—
All His Goods have Wings—
I—do not fly, so wherefore
My Perennial Things?


    - F915, J956, Sheet 11, 1865

This poem presents a classic trope. The sun is shining in the summer, but for the broken-hearted it might as well be midnight in the dead of winter. I can think of many poems (including a few others by Dickinson) that deal with this theme. I can think of a few great songs too, including this one.

Dickinson adds her own spin, and in the meantime she regales us with music from her Maple keep. One reason this poem feels so alive is that Dickinson doesn't merely describe summer, she invents a language that seems to behave like summer:

What shall I do when the Summer troubles—
What, when the Rose is ripe—
What when the Eggs fly off in Music
From the Maple Keep?

You can spend some time looking at the effect Dickinson achieves by the interweaving of those W and R sounds in the first two lines, the way she wields the vowels, the way the lines flow so mellifluously and then end on those hard Ps. It’s so rhythmically perfect and in keeping with the subject. One swoons with summerness.

The eggs are flying off in music from the Maple Keep. "Keep" is a medieval word for the fortified tower of a castle. Suddenly the maple is a fortress. (See F912, where trees are “sentinels.”) The nestlings are escaping into the world, flying off in Music, as though music is the air they travel through. 

But in the midst of this music we know that there is trouble. The phrase “Summer troubles” is one of a few in this poem that is memorable. It would make for a good title.

What shall I do when the Skies a'chirrup
Drop a Tune on me—

Another memorable phrase, “Skies a’chirrup.” Like the eggs flying off in music, the atmosphere itself seems to be made up of bird song. But this doesn’t cheer the poet. Rather the skies “drop” a Tune on her head as if it were a piano falling from a building. (I think of F597, “The emperor with Rubies pelteth me.”) Happiness is an assault to one who is unhappy.

When the Bee hangs all Noon in the Buttercup
What will become of me?

"Hangs" is perfect. The word captures the lazy suspension of a summer afternoon. The line stops, again, on that P sound at the end of Buttercup, and you are, for a moment, hanging in the air, before the painful question returns, "What will become of me?" 

Oh, when the Squirrel fills His Pockets
And the Berries stare
How can I bear their jocund Faces
Thou from Here, so far?

It’s such a simple phrase, “the Berries stare,” but much is going on there. We’ve seen a similar idea in Dickinson before, the most famous example being, “We passed the fields of gazing grain," from F479.

The berries are imagined as having “jocund faces.” They're little cheerful people, but also, the poet feels exposed by their happiness. Everything around her seems to be looking at her loneliness, cheerfully insensitive, obliviously happy.

The berries are staring because the poet is staring at them so intensely. A stare is persistent. It won't leave the poet alone. The berries confront her with beauty, and therefore with absence.

'Twouldn't afflict a Robin—
All His Goods have Wings—

A robin would not suffer like the poet because it can fly to where it needs to. Everything the robin values, its “Goods,” is mobile. The poet, however, is bound to one place. This is especially poignant with Dickinson who famously never left her home in the last 15 years of her life. 

I—do not fly, so wherefore
My Perennial Things?

("Wherefore" is an antiquated poetic word for "why.")

"If I cannot fly," she seems to be saying, "why do I keep having these recurring (perennial) attachments and hopes?"

"Perennial Things," I think, can mean recurring emotional needs that return year after year, just as the seasons do. The poet is questioning why she has been given desires and attachments that reach toward someone distant when she lacks the freedom to follow them. But, conversely, perhaps, she is admiring those who can live life on the wing. It reminds me of the William Blake poem, "Eternity". 

He who binds to himself a joy

Does the winged life destroy.

He who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in Eternity's sunrise.

Well, Dickinson may feel out of season with summer, but her poetry gets her as close to it as can be. It's interesting to see the trochaic pattern in the stanzas. 4343 4343 4343 3343. The loss of the expected beat in the last stanza adds a plaintive feeling when you are reading it out loud. 

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

A Door just opened on a street -

A Door just opened on a street  —
I — lost — was passing by  —
An instant’s Width of Warmth disclosed -
And Wealth — and Company.

The Door as sudden shut — And I  —
I — lost — was passing by —
Lost doubly — but by contrast — most -
Informing — Misery.

     -F914, J953, sheet 10, 1865


The speaker is lost out in the cold. Then she gets a glimpse into a warm home through an open door. When that door is shut (in her face presumably), she feels even worse than before, "Lost doubly." Why? Because she had a brief glimpse of home, of “Wealth - and Company,” and now she knows what she is missing.

This idea, of being worse off after a glimpse of joy than you would have been if you had never gotten it in the first place, is a common one in Dickinson’s poetry. Usually this idea is about lost love, which always makes me wonder: is it true that "it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all," or would it actually be better to have never loved at all? Dickinson wavers, but she generally seems to fall on the side of better never to have loved at all.

The poem may be read as a metaphor for love lost, but the words “Wealth” and “Warmth” makes one think of those who are poor and cold; the homeless.

The heart goes out. One wants that door to open all the way. But will it? 

The “I” in this poem is mentioned three times, with a kind of doubled-up emphasis in the second occurrence:

The Door as sudden shut — And I  —
I — lost — was passing by —

The poem is iambic, but that second "I" there is trochaic, the beat on the first syllable. This rhythmic hiccup stands out. You are forced for a moment to reverse the beat. It creates a kind of stutter effect. You falter under the weight between those two “I”s. 

...And I —
I — lost — ...

There is a pregnant pause between the two stanzas and in the drama of that moment is born a bitterness. 

There is another potential “I” in this poem, the one who is hidden in their wealth and warmth behind that door. Perhaps that is us. The poet, then, aligns us with the downtrodden, with the nobody. "I'm nobody - who are you?" Dickinson always sides with the poor.

Dickinson wasn’t poor, not financially. She lived all of her life in a warm and wealthy home. So the “I” here is, at some level, "another," a projection. As Dickinson says in a letter to a friend, "When I state myself, as the Representative of the Verse - it does not mean-me - but a supposed person."

Perhaps this poem is, then, designed to be a way for the poet, and the readers of the poem, to feel for those outside of her (our) comfort zones.

The poem accomplishes this in a couple of striking ways. First of all it begins in medias res. We are suddenly in the moment. “The door just opened on a street—” We are there, on the street, standing in front of the opened door. 

Secondly, the first person perspective allows us to inhabit the role of the narrator and therefore empathize with the anguish. What would it be like to be homeless? What would it feel like to be cold and hungry and have that “instant width of warmth disclosed." What would it be like to be so all alone. What would feel like to be in such a forlorn state and then have a little taste of warmth and Company? And finally, what would it feel like, then, to have the door shut on us? The more we try to imagine this situation, the more our hearts, like doors, open up.

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

 

P.S. I found the following on FaceBook from a writer named David Mosey. It is insightful: "For some reason this poem always seems to remind me of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, probably because of the contrast of the “Width of Warmth” of the festivities inside with the cold snow-blown street outside. But it is a salutary reminder that Dickinson’s selection of her “Own Society” was not without cost. It is as elegant, concise and heartrending a self-examination as she ever confided to paper."

 

A Man may make a Remark —

A Man may make a Remark —
In itself — a quiet thing
That may furnish the Fuse unto a Spark
In dormant nature — lain —

Let us deport — with skill —
Let us discourse — with care —
Powder exists in Charcoal —
Before it exists in Fire.

  

     -F913, J952, sheet 10, 1865


Slowly going through Dickinson’s poems feels like being adrift in an endless sea of surprises. Every poem has hidden aesthetic pleasures. Every one has secrets to reveal.

This one begins with one of those small aesthetic pleasures, the way the M and K sounds work together:

A Man may make a Remark —

The M is the softest of syllables, the K is the sharpest. Concentrated together they sound remarkable.

A Man may make a Remark —
In itself — a quiet thing

There is a short story I love by Haruki Murakami called Cream. In this story a boy gives up playing the piano because of a quiet remark:

“When we played that piece together, she gave me a sour look every time I hit a wrong note. She was a better pianist than I was, and I tended to get overly tense, so when the two of us sat side by side and played I bungled a lot of notes. My elbow bumped against hers a few times as well. It wasn’t such a difficult piece, and, moreover, I had the easier part. Each time I blew it, she had this Give me a break expression on her face. And she’d click her tongue—not loudly but loud enough that I could catch it. I can still hear that sound, even now. That sound may even have had something to do with my decision to give up the piano.”

I think that is what Dickinson is getting at here. One very quiet line can change a person’s life for better or worse.

a quiet thing
That may furnish the Fuse unto a Spark
In dormant nature — lain —

If one quiet remark can cause someone to “give up music,” it can also cause them to take it up. The spark that lays dormant in nature can be ignited by others.

My wonderful mother-in-law, Ada George, likes to say about teaching that you can only give students flammable material, but they have to provide the spark. But here Dickinson puts it the other way around. The flammable material is already inside, “in dormant nature — lain —,” and we can help provide the spark.

I love that “lain” set off there in between dashes. It highlights that the dormant spark has been "lain" there, by God or nature or what have you. For better or for worse we have the power to set that powder keg off. So...

Let us deport — with skill —
Let us discourse — with care —

“Deport” as Dickinson uses it here does not carry its contemporary meaning of sending someone out of the country. It means “to behave or comport (oneself) especially in accord with a code.”

The practice of this “skill” is a life-long pursuit. You could say that all of Dickinson’s poetry is an extremely careful discourse. 

The stakes are great. One “wince” as someone sings out of tune can be enough to stop them from ever singing again. One laugh at someone else's dancing, even if the laughter is meant to be in delight, can keep them off the dance floor. On the other hand one quiet remark may also be enough to keep them singing and dancing for life.

As a teacher, parent and friend, I don't think these words could be more meaningful.

Powder exists in Charcoal —
Before it exists in Fire.

Dickinson ends the poem with a tight little aphorism, dense as charcoal. Charcoal is an interesting metaphor because it is made by heating wood in the absence of oxygen. This process allows it to burn hotter, cleaner and with a longer duration than regular wood.

Goals.

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

a fascinating history of Charcoal

To my quick ear the Leaves—conferred—

To my quick ear the Leaves—conferred—
The Bushes—they were Bells—
I could not find a Privacy
From Nature's sentinels—

In Cave if I presumed to hide
The Walls—begun to tell—
Creation seemed a mighty Crack—
To make me visible—


    -F912, J891, sheet 10, 1865

There’s a crack in this poem. You can hear it in the very word, which comes at the climax of the poem, not just any crack, but a mighty Crack. It’s a great word. First of all, the word is onomatopoeic. It sounds like what it is, so you feel it in the body. The word has power. It winds up with CCCRRR then sails through AAA and ends on a resounding CKCKCK. I’m exaggerating to make the point felt, but if you say the word out loud, you can feel its power for yourself. Dickinson amps up this power even more by giving us an extra CR in the word “Creation,” which kickstarts the line.

 
Creation seemed a mighty Crack—

There’s also another Crack in this poem; the stanza break. The poem appears as if it has been rent in two. (There are other Dickinson poems that make a similar move, but I can’t currently recall them. If you do, please let me know.)

Like the audible Crack, this visual one serves a purpose. There are no words in that stanza break. There is only the white of the page (the screen), only silence. It reminds me of Leonard Cohen’s line, “There is a crack in everything/ that's how the light gets in." 

Notice that the poem begins with a hint of this mighty climactic "Crack" in the sound of “Quick.” 

To my quick ear the Leaves—conferred—

(See how quick Dickinson’s ear is? She heard the Crack even before it came. It was there in the quick.)

"Leaves" here might be read as the leaves of books. To read the leaves of a book of great poetry, such as Dickinson was attuned to, is to have a quick ear.

But the primary source of imagery here is nature itself, the leaves of the trees. Nature comes alive to speak to Dickinson, to confer to her ear. To confer can mean to exchange ideas, or seek advice, or to formally bestow an honor. All of this do the leaves confer to Emily.

The Bushes—they were Bells—

What a juicy line. How does Dickinson do it? The lines sing, each and every one, just as the landscape does, the very bushes themselves.

I could not find a Privacy
From Nature's sentinels—

The first question here is why would you want privacy from conferring leaves and ringing bushes? It reminds me a little of the line from F597, “The emperor with Rubies pelteth me.” It’s like being protected from being overwhelmed. The idea of these bushes and trees being “sentinels,” watching over the poet, adds a wrinkle too. Why would you want privacy from the thing that is watching out for you? Nature is presented, in this first stanza as wholly good: conferring, ringing, and protecting.

I think “privacy,” in this first stanza at least, is meant to be ironic. There can be no privacy when all of nature rings and sings along with us.

But after that visual Crack between stanzas the tone changes a bit. The need for privacy, the hiding, takes one into the darkness.

In Cave if I presumed to hide
The Walls—begun to tell—

The self wants to hide, puts itself in a cave. But even the cave walls begin to tell. One thinks of Plato’s cave here. (I wonder if Emily did?) Plato’s cave is a metaphor telling us that we can’t know outside reality from within our own mental caves. We can only see shadows on its walls that hint at the truth. In Dickinson’s cave it’s more like the walls themselves are dissolving into light. The “walls began to tell.” Maybe those cave walls are echoing the poet's song back to herself?

The idea of nature “telling” is a revelatory one. We see this idea play out often in Shakespeare. The line "stones have been known to move and trees to speak" is spoken by Macbeth after seeing Banquo's ghost, suggesting to us that nature itself exposes the truth behind his hidden actions.

Creation seemed a mighty Crack—
To make me visible—

This idea of the poet becoming visible in the “crack” is resonant on many levels, though we can start with hearkening back to that Leonard Cohen line: the "visible," the light, gets through the Crack in the stone of the cave. The truth comes through in the very place where there has been violence and injury.

A certain level of irony can be seen in this poem when we know a little about the poet. She was famously reclusive. I think in this poem she may be calling herself out for this tendency. She’s admitting to herself that it is in her vulnerability that she sings as a poet. Her poems are often the result of heart-break.

The tell is also in the scars. This poem is the second one written on “sheet 10” (as Miller numbers them.) If we look at the first poem Dickinson wrote down on that sheet, F911, then we see the result of this crack. It is presented there as a permanent"gash," a "crease" and a "stain."

When you read these two poems together you get a bigger picture. You see the reason for wanting to hide in the first one, whereas this subsequent poem presents the problem with hiding. 

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Yellowbells: Harbingers of Spring

As Frost is best conceived

As Frost is best conceived
By force of its Result —
Affliction is inferred
By subsequent effect —

If when the sun reveal,
The Garden keep the Gash —
If as the Days resume
The wilted countenance

Cannot correct the crease
Or counteract the stain —
Presumption is Vitality
Was somewhere put in twain.


     -F911, J951, Sheet 10, 1865


The Lexicon of this poem is largely in latin. The result is a dry and academically abstract tone. This cold legalistic language seems to be part of the freezing effect of the subject in the poem. Frosty words for a frosty poem.

The wonder is the way she makes these sharp-angled words flow so smoothly within the confines of the common hymn meter.  

This poem is a cold counter-example to the aphorism, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” Where there are wilted flowers, there’s been frost. 

This is a gardening metaphor, and it is understood that the frost in question is one that is out of season. It’s one of those late unexpected frosts that destroy the early bloomers. 

Frost is best conceived
By force of its Result —

When we see that plants aren’t making it, we can understand the full import of the reason, we can then  “conceive of the force” of frost.

The metaphor is, I think, meant to tell us that when we see someone who is depressed, who has a “wilted countenance,” drooping like a frost-damaged dahlia, there is a “force” behind it. We didn’t fully understand the strength of this force until we saw the “subsequent” damage.

Affliction is inferred
By subsequent effect —

The garden (and all that word implies) cannot be completely healed. It “keeps the gash.” The wilted countenance (face) of the damaged person cannot correct the crease created by the damage, nor counteract the stain. Gash, crease and stain here are violent words. Notice that they are all both verbs and nouns. When you gash, crease and stain, you are left with a permanent gash, crease and stain. Perhaps Dickinson is alluding to emotional cruelty, but there may be something even worse implied here, a physical effect of violence that far outlasts the emotional intensity of the moment.

Presumption is Vitality
Was somewhere put in twain.

In other words, we presume there is a real reason, some invisible frost, that has caused a person’s Vitality to weaken. The depression is a symptom of real, or perceived, violence. PTSD.

I think of all that icy imagery in Dickinson’s poetry here, like in the famous poem that ends, “As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –/ First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –.”

I also think of those tragic lines from F841, “Sun—withdrawn to Recognition—/ Furthest shining—done—”

Our actions can effect serious permanent damage upon the growth of others. Have patience with those who are having trouble thriving. Take care of your people and your plants, and take care of yourself. Grow indoors when the temperatures threaten to take a downward spike.


      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

tips on how to handle a late frost

P.S. Aside from the deft handling of the latinate, there are some other shining moments of Dickinson's craft that are worth noticing in this poem. 

There is the way that the steady iambic tri-meter (3 beats) in the first 10 lines sets up the push into tetrameter (4 beats) in the 11th, creating extra emphasis on that word “Vitality,” and then, the way this tension resolves back to tri-meter in the final line, “Was somewhere put in Twain.” It’s like the breath was held a bit longer at the climax of the poem and then released.

Another impressive moment is in the consonant cluster of C T N and R sounds in “countenance/ Cannot correct the crease/ Or counteract.” 

P.P.S. The subtle use of the word "force" here reminds me of Sylvia Plath's poem, "The Rabbit Catcher" which begins, ominously, with a very Dickinsonian line of iambic tri-meter, replete with a dash, 

It was a place of force—