22 December 2010

never be merely pretty

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I know it freaks out men when you don't fall for this stuff, but your life depends on it.

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading—treading—till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through—

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum—
Kept beating—beating—till I thought
My Mind was going numb—

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space—began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here—

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down—
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing—then—


—Emily Dickinson

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love, 99
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6 comments:

  1. Katie - Wonderful!

    Emily - what more can be said...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Katie - AWESOME!

    And that poem of Emily's is THE greatest poem ever written. I still have to find my thousand-page [brilliant] analysis of it. It's so deep it blows my mind. SHE WAS LIVING PROOF OF KATIE'S SPEECH.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Senior year of high school my English Lit. final was to write a thesis on Robert Frost.

    I mean, what can you say - so blatant how could you write more than a page and have him down.

    So I created a challenge. I set about proving that he was a Universal Poet writing in a Pastoral mode.

    Cinched an A+.
    .

    ReplyDelete
  4. I, on the other hand, got an A+ for eloquently dissing some of his work into the dirt.... :o]

    ReplyDelete
  5. Though, I ought to add that The Wind and The Window Flower is one of my favorite poems....

    ReplyDelete
  6. Lovers, forget your love,
    And list to the love of these,
    She a window flower,
    And he a winter breeze.

    When the frosty window veil
    Was melted down at noon,
    And the cagèd yellow bird
    Hung over her in tune,

    He marked her through the pane,
    He could not help but mark,
    And only passed her by,
    To come again at dark.

    He was a winter wind,
    Concerned with ice and snow,
    Dead weeds and unmated birds,
    And little of love could know.

    But he sighed upon the sill,
    He gave the sash a shake,
    As witness all within
    Who lay that night awake.

    Perchance he half prevailed
    To win her for the flight
    From the firelit looking-glass
    And warm stove-window light.

    But the flower leaned aside
    And thought of naught to say,
    And morning found the breeze
    A hundred miles away.

    ReplyDelete

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