THE POCKET EMILY DICKINSON by Margaret McLaren

I ambled complacently into the library to pick up my copy of “The Pocket Emily Dickinson”, wondering idly why I had never actually read a single poem of hers, and knew practically nothing about her life.  “I don’t get her,” a friend had recently commented.  “Emily Dickinson,” said another, “Wasn’t she . . . ummm . . . “  

 

So on the way back to my car, I opened the little book, entirely at random, and on page 91, I read:

 

“There is a pain – so utter –

It swallows substance up –

Then covers the Abyss with Trance –

So memory can step

Around – across – upon it –

As one within a Swoon –

Goes safely – where an open eye –

Would drop Him – Bone by Bone”

 

I found myself sobbing uncontrollably by the middle of the second line, there in the parking lot of the Guerneville library, and knocked flat by the time I reached the end of the poem.  Please understand, I am not a woman who cries, but it took me a good hour, and a very long walk in Armstrong Woods, to get myself together again.

 

Suffice it to say I am not likely to ever forget the day I read my first Emily Dickinson poem, and I am determined, once I can read page 91 with equanimity, to attempt another one.  

 

I think it is safe to say that I now “get” Emily Dickinson.