It sifts from leaden sieves

L.

It sifts from leaden sieves,

It powders all the wood,

It fills with alabaster wool

The wrinkles of the road.

It makes an even face

Of mountain and of plain, -

Unbroken forehead from the east

Unto the east again.

It reaches to the fence,

It wraps it rail by rail,

Till it is lost in fleeces;

It flings a crystal veil

On stump and stack and stem, -

The summer's empty room,

Acres of seams where harvests were,

Recordless, but for them.

It ruffles wrists of posts,

As ankles of a queen, -

Then stills its artisans like ghosts,

Denying they have been.

South Pass, Wyoming.

Will there really be a morning?

II.

Will there really be a morning?

Is there such a thing as day?

Could I see it from the mountains

If I were as tall as they?

Has it feet like water-lilies?

Has it feathers like a bird?

Is it brought from famous countries

Of which I have never heard?

Oh, some scholar!  Oh, some sailor!

Oh, some wise man from the skies!

Please to tell a little pilgrim

Where the place called morning lies!

Lyons Valley Road, near Lander, Wyoming.

An everywhere of silver

XXII.

An everywhere of silver,

With ropes of sand

To keep it from effacing

The track called land.

In Sinks Canyon, near Lander, Wyoming.

The mountain sat upon the plain

LXXII.

The mountain sat upon the plain

In his eternal chair,

His observation omnifold,

His inquest everywhere.

The seasons prayed around his knees,

Like children round a sire;

Grandfather of the days is he,

Of dawn the ancestor.

The Tetons, near Jackson, Wyoming.

There's a certain slant of light

LXXXII.

There's a certain slant of light,

On winter afternoons,

That oppresses, like the weight

Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;

We can find no scar,

But internal difference

Where the meanings are.

None may teach it anything,

'T is the seal, despair, -

An imperial affliction

Sent of us the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens

Shadows hold their breath,

When it goes, 't is like the distance

On the look of death.

Sacajawea Cemetery, near Fort Washakie, Wyoming.

It's like the light

XCVIII.

It's like the light, -

A fashionless delight,

It's like the bee, -

A dateless melody.

It's like the woods,

Private like breeze,

Phraseless, yet it stirs

The proudest trees.

It's like the morning, -

Best when it's done, -

The everlasting clocks

Chime noon.

Between Fort Washakie and Lander, Wyoming.

Apparently with no surprise

LXXVI.

Apparently with no surprise

To any happy flower,

The frost beheads it at its play

In accidental power.

The blond assassin passes on,

The sun proceeds unmoved

To measure off another day

For an approving God.

Taken at Arapahoe, Wyoming.

The murmuring of bees has ceased

CXI.

The murmuring of bees has ceased;

But murmuring of some

Posterior, prophetic,

Has simultaneously come, -

The lower metres of the year,

When nature's laugh is done, -

The Revelations of the book,

Whose Genesis is June.

Taken at Fort Washakie, Wyoming.

The sky is low

LXXX.

The sky is low, the clouds are mean,

A travelling flake of snow

Across a barn or through a rut

Debates if it will go.

A narrow wind complains all day

How some one treated him;

Nature, like us, is sometimes caught

Without her diadem.

Between Lander and Fort Washakie, Wyoming.

The overview

I've always loved Emily Dickinson. Her self-imposed house-bound exile in Amherst, her use of dashes in poetry, her aura of mystery, the fact that only one confirmed photo of her as an adult exists. Most of all, I love that her poems are brief. She says what she wants to say and is done with it.

Most of the time, I would welcome self-imposed house-bound exile. Give me a book or a movie or a blog and, if there's also hot fudge cake, I would be quite content to watch the world go by for months. And I love dashes. Both the kind I use in writing and the occasional mad one to the store to pick up something I forgot and desperately need to make hot fudge cake. There aren't very many photos of me hanging around, either, so I can relate to Emily there, too - there are NO baby photos at all. (The first photo of me is when I was about two, and it's pretty scratched and beaten up. AND it includes my sister, who I think was probably the main focus of the photographer; I just injected myself into the shot. You'll notice my sister does not appear to be all that impressed about me intruding this way. Just so you know, I'm the Alien Barbie on the right in the photo above.)

The purpose of this blog is not to compare myself to Emily Dickinson, however - Lord, no. For the next 12 months, I'm going to interpret (through Wyoming photographs) 112 nature poems by Emily Dickinson.

Here we go!