spring

I have a Bird in spring
Which for myself doth sing –
The spring decoys.
And as the summer nears –
And as the Rose appears,
Robin is gone.

Yet do I not repine
Knowing that Bird of mine
Though flown –
Learneth beyond the sea
Melody new for me
And will return.

Fast is a safer hand
Held in a truer Land
Are mine –
And though they now depart,
Tell I my doubting heart
They’re thine.

In a serener Bright,
In a more golden light
I see
Each little doubt and fear,
Each little discord here
Removed.

Then will I not repine,
Knowing that Bird of mine
Though flown
Shall in a distant tree
Bright melody for me
Return.

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A light exists in spring
Not present on the year
At any other period.
When March is scarcely here

A color stands abroad
On solitary hills
That science cannot overtake,
But human nature feels.

It waits upon the lawn;
It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
It almost speaks to me.

Then, as horizons step,
Or noons report away,
Without the formula of sound,
It passes, and we stay:

A quality of loss
Affecting our content,
As trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a sacrament.

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The springtime’s pallid landscape
Will glow like bright bouquet,
Though drifted deep in parian
The village lies to-day.

The lilacs, bending many a year,
With purple load will hang;
The bees will not forget the tune
Their old forefathers sang.

The rose will redden in the bog,
The aster on the hill
Her everlasting fashion set,
And covenant gentians frill,

Till summer folds her miracle
As women do their gown,
Or priests adjust the symbols
When sacrament is done.

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A few Dickinson news items have drawn our attention, and might warrant yours:

• Guy Noir sings Emily Dickinson?: the Amherst Bulletin notes that Emily Dickinson was the butt of an extended joke on Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion last week, with the erstwhile P.I. Guy Noir auditioning for a role in “Stop for Death,” a Dickinson musical. Of course, this is the same Keillor whose latest CD is called “English Majors” and who holds sonnet contests, so I’m sure the joke was in good fun (Cub Scout activities kept me from hearing the show myself, alas). I seem to remember an amusing riff a few months ago that involved Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, and wood ticks; Keillor is certainly one to monitor . . .
• Dickinson Marathon in St. Paul: another story with a Minnesota connection: St. Thomas University will hold a Dickinson marathon on April 25, 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM, in the O’Shaughnessy Room of O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library Center. “The goal: To read aloud all of Dickinson’s poems — from #1 to #1,789 — between 8 a.m. and midnight. Readers can come and go as they please; stay for a half-hour or make a day of it. Participants will sit in a circle and take turns reading; listeners are welcome too.” Common Good Books–Garrison Keillor’s bookstore–has provided copies of Franklin’s edition of Dickinson; this seems like a conspiracy . . .
• Wild Nights! reviews are all around us this Spring: the Minneapolis Star Tribune weighs in (will these Minnesotans not leave poor Dickinson be?), as does the New York Times Book Review. According to the Book Review’s podcast, the NYT reviewer Brenda Wineapple has a book about Dickinson and Higginson hitting the shelves this August.
• A Summer of Hummingbirds by Christopher Benfey is the next Dickinson-related book to watch: a fascinating look into the intersections of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, and Martin Johnson Heade, a naturalist and artist who specialized in hummingbirds, a creature which frequently inhabits Dickinson’s poems.
• Fleda Brown discusses “I heard a fly buzz” in her ongoing series for National Poetry Month (and you thought April was just about fools and taxes . . .)
• Finally, we hope that the “Daily” aspect of “Daily Dickinson” will return this week, with several non-poetic things coming under control here at DailyDickionson World Headquarters; stay tuned!

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Cambridge, Massachusetts, poet and visual artist Irene Koronas has released a book, “self portrait drawn from many,” consisting of portraits (in words and pictures) of people ranging from Arthur Rimbaud to Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Chaplin to Emily Dickinson. Subtitled “65 poems for 65 years”, the poems offer both insight into their subjects and, collectively, a portrait of a life of reading, writing, and thinking.

The Ibbetson Street Press publication is available at Lulu; a Koronas piece on Emily Dickinson also appears in the online journal Istanbul Literary Review. Interviews from the Boston Globe and Cervena Barva Press offer more insight.

Koronas is also the poetry editor of Wilderness House Literary Review, a quarterly online journal. There are so many wonderful online journals springing up–my own favorites include The Barcelona Review, failbetter, and JMWW–that it’s hard to keep up; WHL is certainly worth a look.

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Before you thought of spring,
Except as a surmise,
You see, God bless his suddenness,
A fellow in the skies
Of independent hues,
A little weather-worn,
Inspiriting habiliments
Of indigo and brown.

With specimens of song,
As if for you to choose,
Discretion in the interval,
With gay delays he goes
To some superior tree
Without a single leaf,
And shouts for joy to nobody
But his seraphic self!

The official Daily Dickinson 2008 Calendar is available, featuring poems and pictures that have been featured on this site.

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The sun just touched the morning;
The morning, happy thing,
Supposed that he had come to dwell,
And life would be all spring.

She felt herself supremer, –
A raised, ethereal thing;
Henceforth for her what holiday!
Meanwhile, her wheeling king

Trailed slow along the orchards
His haughty, spangled hems,
Leaving a new necessity, –
The want of diadems!

The morning fluttered, staggered,
Felt feebly for her crown, –
Her unanointed forehead
Henceforth her only one.

The official Daily Dickinson 2008 Calendar is available, featuring poems and pictures that have been featured on this site.

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I years had been from home,
And now, before the door,
I dared not open, lest a face
I never saw before

Stare vacant into mine
And ask my business there.
My business, — just a life I left,
Was such still dwelling there?

I fumbled at my nerve,
I scanned the windows near;
The silence like an ocean rolled,
And broke against my ear.

I laughed a wooden laugh
That I could fear a door,
Who danger and the dead had faced,
But never quaked before.

I fitted to the latch
My hand, with trembling care,
Lest back the awful door should spring,
And leave me standing there.

I moved my fingers off
As cautiously as glass,
And held my ears, and like a thief
Fled gasping from the house.

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