Dear Emily

Mount Moriah in the Black Hills of South Dakota

Since coming across New Poems of Emily Dickinson (edited by William H. Shurr) last weekend at Dunaway Books, I've set aside a couple other reads to overindulge in this collection of epistolary Dickinson excerpts.

I have to agree with the editor that even though these portions of letters are not included in the traditional canon of Dickinson poems – and though most of them were formatted as prose by the poet – it's worthwhile to consider them in this poetic, reformatted light as well.

They hold up beautifully under it. Dickinson is strange, unexpected, irreverent as ever.

Among those that particularly strike me:

"The career of flowers differs from ours
only in inaudibleness." (388)

Flora at Devils Tower, Wyoming

"Spring is a happiness so beautiful,
so unique, so unexpected,
that I don't know what to do with my heart.
I dare not take it,
I dare not leave it –
What do you advise?" (389) 

"Expulsion from Eden grows indistinct
in the presence of flowers so blissful,
and with no disrespect to Genesis,
Paradise remains." (552)

"Consciousness is the only home
of which we now know.
That sunny adverb had been enough,
were it not foreclosed." (591) 

"The little sentences I began
and never finished –  
the little wells I dug
and never filled –"  (748)

"Maturity only enhances mystery,
never decreases it." (769)