A Certain Slant of Light
There’s a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons – That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes – Heavenly Hurt, it gives us – We can find no scar, But internal difference, Where the Meanings, are – None may teach it – Any – ‘Tis the Seal Despair – An imperial affliction Sent us of the Air – When it comes, the Landscape listens – Shadows – hold their breath – When it goes, ‘tis like the Distance On the look of Death – Emily Dickinson
Hope
At a time when the voice of hate seems louder than other voices, I turn to the voices I trust. I turn to members of my family. I turn to my friends. And I turn to the poets and artists whose work has sustained me. Thank you, Emily.
Broken
Dried
Ah, when to the heart of a man Was it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of things, To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end Of a love or a season?
Robert Frost, “Reluctance”
Sacred Stone Nation
someone
somewhere
is speaking
from the north
a sacred-stone nation
is speaking
you will hear
someone
somewhere
is speaking
–by Bear Necklace, Teton Sioux
Threadsuns
Threadsuns
over the grayblack wasteness.
A tree-
high thought
strikes the light-tone: there are
still songs to sing beyond
humankind.
To stand
To stand, in the shadow
of a scar in the air.
Stand-for-no-one-and-nothing.
Unrecognized,
for you
alone.
With all that has room within it,
even without
language.
–Paul Celan
A Certain Slant of Light
There’s a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.
Emily Dickinson
Ample Make This Bed
Ample make this bed.
Make this bed with awe;
In it wait till judgment break
Excellent and fair.
Emily Dickinson
Ghosts
One need not be a chamber to be haunted,
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.
Far safer, of a midnight meeting
External ghost,
Than an interior confronting
That whiter host.
Far safer through an Abbey gallop,
The stones achase,
Than, moonless, one’s own self encounter
In lonesome place.
Ourself, behind ourself concealed,
Should startle most;
Assassin, hid in our apartment,
Be horror’s least.
The prudent carries a revolver,
He bolts the door,
O’erlooking a superior spectre
More near.
Emily Dickinson
A Feather
A feather is trimmed, it is trimmed by the light and the bug and the post, it is trimmed by little leaning and by all sorts of mounted reserves and loud volumes. It is surely cohesive.
–Gertrude Stein, from Tender Buttons
Redzenradish Photography 