For Emily

by Caroline Donnola

 

Emily Dickinson
said it all—

Of time
And timid hope
Though Wrought of Sterner Stuff.
Absent any normalcy
The punctuation—
Breathless
Taut
Beating,
Like a

Slow
Bass

Drum—

With a pierced heart
That bleeds at every pump.
She had the gift
That no one loved
Until her own mortality was spun.
A footnote to her troubled life
A fire to every would-be poet
Or half-lived dream.
Telling us how much
And where
And in what ways
We are—

We humans

We birds

We streams.
In slant rhyme—
In whispered moans.
Until we, like her,
Are leaching poetry
From our bones.

(Thank you Caroline for this beautiful poem)