Pink Sky Tonight and Emily Dickinson [by Jennifer Michael Hecht]

 

Dearest Bleaders,

How are you? Like most bloggers or writers of anything but letters, I don't know who's reading me, but I sort of pretend I do, starting from anyone who has ever written a comment or told me they read these posts, and radiating out into the social known and unknown, in pulses of possibility. Which is to say that when I ask How you are, I am somehow actually asking, and I hope you are well.

I'm the usual, which is a brutal combination of very well and awful, of which I hear there is a lot going around. Frankly, I hope you are doing better, but I'm not too bad, possibly improving.

What if you struggle and it isn't easy and it hasn't been? It seems so strange to choose to hide the strain, but it isn't exactly a choice. Tonight in my Poets and Philosophy class we are going to talk about Emily Dickinson for two and a half hours and I am always delighted to do so. She makes me something, lifts my something. Happy and spirits.

I'm looking forward to talking about the one that starts "I measure every grief I meet," as I've been thinking about it a lot lately. First though, let's look at this odd little thing:

A wounded deer leaps highest,

I've heard the hunter tell;

'Tis but the ecstasy of death,

And then the brake is still.

 

The smitten rock that gushes,
The trampled steel that springs:
A cheek is always redder
Just where the hectic stings!

Mirth is mail of anguish,
In which its cautious arm
Lest anybody spy the blood
And, "you're hurt" exclaim

I say it's odd because I'm not crazy about the middle stanza and can't help but flinch when the poem's final rhythm hinges on the rhyming of "cautious arm" with "hurt exclaim." But I like "mirth is a mail of anguish" very much.

Here's her deeper poem on the hiding and knowing of pain and its consolations.

I measure every grief I meet
With analytic eyes;
I wonder if it weighs like mine,
Or has an easier size.

I wonder if they bore it long,
Or did it just begin?
I could not tell the date of mine,
It feels so old a pain.

I wonder if it hurts to live,
And if they have to try,
And whether, could they choose between,
They would not rather die.

I wonder if when years have piled--
Some thousands--on the cause
Of early hurt, if such a lapse
Could give them any pause;

Or would they go on aching still
Through centuries above,
Enlightened to a larger pain
By contrast with the love.

The grieved are many, I am told;
The reason deeper lies,--
Death is but one and comes but once
And only nails the eyes.

There's grief of want, and grief of cold,--
A sort they call 'despair,'
There's banishment from native eyes,
In sight of native air.

And though I may not guess the kind
Correctly yet to me
A piercing comfort it affords
In passing Calvary,

To note the fashions of the cross
Of those that stand alone
Still fascinated to presume
That some are like my own.

One of the million things I cherish about this poem is the "piercing comfort it affords" to try to know and bear, for a moment, in contemplation, the burdens of others, and to thereby be less alone, suffering, and less absorbed by one's own suffering. "There's grief of want and grief of cold" and "a sort they call despair," and there's being separate from what your heart knows as home, right there in front of you but no longer yours -- "banishment from native eyes in sight of native air."

I love too that those "that stand alone" though they yet stand alone, are not singular, but are many, and therefor are not alone. The crackle of being alone in such good company is why this poem starts little brushfires on the red, Martian deserts of the heart.

To read more interviews between the voices in my head in the museum of my muse, see here.

To look at my books, see these.

To see a Radio Freethinker write-up of that LA conference on Secular Humanism I took part in a few weeks ago, see there.

I had a great time at the New School reading last night, thanks to everyone who showed up. It was really great to see so many friends. Thanks to David Lehman for the invitation and the great job moderating.

Well friends, bleaders, poets, and other travelers in the realms of gold, you know what I am going to say. Which is bear up! Courage. I speak especially to those standing alone in impossible inner situations, feeling the cool autumn air press down from outer space and trying not to name the chill too often, or too well. The advice is small and simple. Don't fall in the well. It is not your fault and you are doing fine. Rake a leaf a day and call it lucky.

Don't kill yourself and I shall return to encourage you again.

Love, 

Jennifer

ps. Here's me against tonight's pink sky, taken by John, just for you.

Comments

[cary grant]

One of your best, Jen Mike. Hang in there.

[Dan]

I needed this today. Thank you. Dan B.

[Lois]

Lovely sentiments. I forgot how long (!) is "I measure every grief.." but I'll never forget how I felt I was being hugged when I read it for the first time. And, more than that, a kind of permission to give up censoring myself for voyeurism when I, too, felt tempted to contrasted others coping skills with mine instead of focusing on the underlying needs. Now that I think about it, I still feel hugged when my 'narrow probing eyes' inspect a blog for its truth.
Nice to meet you Jennifer. I'll be back.