51: The Poems of Emily Dickinson, 1999, Emily Dickinson (1830–86)
I read her poems long before
This volume came along.
(A friend and I converted one
Into a (sort of) song.)*
I’ve memorized a lot of hers—
A dozen? Or a score?
I wish my sad old brain had room
For many, many more.
Remarkable, her language, for
She uses words so few,
But she had mastered language, and
She knew just what to do.
She scanned the universe—a task
That is so very hard.
She did so from the confines of
Her very own backyard.
Intelligent? A genius? Yes!
She found where language starts—
Begins with feeling and with thought—
Then moves into our hearts
In lines of hers so perfect that
There is no other way
To transfer to our hearts what her
Pure genius had to say.
*College roommate Chuck Rodgers and I did “If You Were Coming in the Fall.”
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