Friday, May 18, 2007

Emily Dickinson and Poetry Friday

I have finally gotten my act together and am participating in Poetry Friday again. Hah! I'm not quite sure what that was for, I just felt like it. We'll say the nasty tendencies of myself to be disorganized.

It was actually quite lovely to go searching for my poetry books amid the boxes. (Background--we made a cross-country move almost a year ago and still aren't totally unpacked.) I found Christina Rossetti, and both Emily Dickinsons, and A Pocket Book of Verse. I wavered for a bit, but finally settled on "We grow accustomed to the dark" by Emily Dickinson, partly because it's one of my roommate's favorite poems and I miss her. And partly because it's a good poem.


We grow accustomed to the Dark--
When Light is put away--
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye--

A Moment--We uncertain step
For newness of the night--
Then--fit our Vision to the Dark--
And meet the Road--erect--

And so of larger--Darknesses--
Those Evenings of the Brain--
When not a Moon disclose the sign--
Or Star--come out--within--

The Bravest--grope a little--
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead--
But as they learn to see--

Either the Darkness alters--
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight--
And Life steps almost straight.


I love the last stanza. That sly 'almost' which acknowledges that life can't step absolutely straight.

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