A Light exists in Spring

A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period –
When March is scarcely here

A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels.

It waits upon the Lawn,
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope you know
It almost speaks to you.

Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes and we stay –

A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.

   

        -Fr962, J812, sheet 22, 1865

There is a painterly quality in the Emily Dickinson poems that focus on light, just as there is a poetic quality in the paintings of Vermeer.

Poetry takes the picture deep into the ineffable. The poem before this one in the Franklin order, for instance, focuses on the quality of the iodine color of light reflecting off of a waterfall, the last bit of color to leave us before darkness takes over. Poetry goes beyond the merely visual into the interior state, becoming, in a sense, the light made manifest. Think of her famous poem that begins,

There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –

That poem could be seen as a prequel, almost the antithesis, of this one. The two are complementary. We have moved on from winter light and are now in spring’s. The light isn’t oppressive anymore, but rather is waiting on the lawn to show us the "furthest Tree/ Upon the furthest slope."

Still though, something is wanting, because eventually the light “passes and we stay.” Nothing gold can stay and before the poem is over the light is already slanting again, shadows holding their breath.

Let’s look at the particulars.

A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels.

In Spring "A Color stands abroad/ on Solitary Fields.” The generic quality of this line is a bit like a minimalist painting, "A Color" on a the "Solitary Fields" of canvas. Solitary Fields (note the singular plural) is the corollary to the line from the poem about winter's slant of light, which shows us “internal difference,/ Where the Meanings, are –” The solitude, like the internal difference, is illuminated. 

“That science cannot overtake” has its counterpart in the "certain slant of light poem" too, in the line, “None may teach it – Any –” This is a feeling, and feeling is a priori.  Feeling blooms from the Solitary Field. It’s a relief, to me, that “feeling” is beyond science and cannot be taught. AI ain’t got nothing, in the end, on the effect of spring light. Here is Dickinson attempting, and somehow succeeding, once again, to express the inexpressible, to evoke the sublime. “It almost speaks to you.”

It waits upon the Lawn,
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope you know
It almost speaks to you.

The light leads the poet out of the comfort of home and onto the lawn. It points toward life, toward the “furthest Tree” on the “furthest Slope you know.” The tree, the emblem of life itself, is on the edge of sight’s circumference. It is, for a moment, lit up for the watcher from the window, bathed in a holy aura.

It almost speaks to you. If it was speaking, what would it say? Perhaps simply, “Go.” But go where? The poem turns here. The horizon is always changing...

Then as Horizons step

You step toward the horizon and the horizon itself steps toward winter, toward death, always eluding you.

Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound

A report has a couple of different possible meanings here, the first being information on a finding. There can be no "formula" ultimately, no "sound" to this report, which is always moving onward and therefore indefinite. The image here is of one who is suddenly so far away that you can see them speaking, but can no longer hear them. This is what a "spring noon" is like, in retrospect.

The other meaning of "report" is a gunshot. The starting gun of spring is going off, but the race is already too far away to hear. 

A quality of loss
Affecting our Content

We can never be fully content because we are always aware of the temporal. This reminds me of Keats' lines, "Ay, in the very temple of Delight/ Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine." 

Finally we  come to the clincher in this poem, an idea that adds something new to the table:

As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.

When I hear “Trade had suddenly encroached/ upon a Sacrament” I'm reminded of Jesus losing his temper in the temple and driving the money lenders out. “Trade” stands for any economic exchange though. The idea here is that Spring is like the quality of sacred Mercy that is freely given regardless of what we may deserve, but the rest of the year is more akin to “Trade,” to expectations of a return for services rendered. It’s all business come harvest season.

In Fr948, a poem written around the same time as this one, we get the lines,

Spring is the Period
Express from God—

It's a beautiful way to think of Spring, as a reminder of mercy. The mercy, alas, always passes, “affecting our content.” 

The seasons then are a mirror, a reminder, of our journey from innocence to experience. The garden of Eden returns every spring and every autumn we are thrown out again. Every fall we fall. But of course the inverse is true too: in spring we are sprung. The prequel is also the sequel.

        -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

We are stardust, we are golden

We are billion-year-old carbon

And we've got to get ourselves

Back to the garden