Monthly Archives: January 2010

January 30, 2010 · 10:32 am

Double Dare

Emily launches yet another broadside in her campaign to prove her love. This confrontation is heating up. And she leaps from the cliff of heresy . . again.

# 456, c. 1862

So well that I can live without —
I love thee — then How well is that?
As well as Jesus?
Prove it me
That He — loved Men —
As I — love thee —

This sounds like another attempt to convince. Someone is not buying Emily’s particular brand of flummery. So she crafts this trenchant argument to her lover. I parse it this way: Emily loves so well that she can accept her lover’s absence without allowing her feelings to curdle into hatred. And yet . . . and yet . . . the poet can’t help one last parting shot. She wants to make sure this erstwhile, unconvinced lover knows that her love is better, greater even than Jesus’ love for all of mankind. Emily, the superior lover, declares that her love is not some cool, distant abstraction that one reads in an old book and must take on faith. Jesus and his story-tellers, offered a love diffused into metaphor over the entire human species. Emily has something a great deal more local and concrete in mind.

Emily’s heresy is to suggest that hers is the greater love because it is more difficult. She implies that it’s relatively easy for Jesus to love us. He’s dead anyway. And safely tucked up in Heaven with God the Father, where everything works out just fine. She’s impatient with this sanctified love. Too safe. Too neat a dodge to displace that desire for love onto a dead guy. How much more complex and interesting and demanding of the self to evolve in spirit while still cloaked in this soft, decaying, glove of skin—to cultivate a love here on earth. Emily throws this challenge to her lover: “I dare you to love now, while we live as mortal beings with all our sweat and mess and looming death. Try that before you give up on me.”

If you had asked me last week where lay the answer to all my prayers, I would have said the West Bank. (Because that’s where I found what I need for my Mardi Gras costume.) Turns out that is not entirely true. Today Geoff and I embark on an expedition to New Orleans East because that is where you find junk yards with the remains of old Toyotas that can be mined for treasure, obscure car parts that would be costly if purchased directly from the dealer. So we go east in search of our heart’s desire. Typical me, I was rooting about in the wrong quarter of the compass for my heart’s desire. I need a new map, too.

Define the Divine

We are gliding toward that full moon in Leo (drama!) which is followed a couple days later by the Saturn-Pluto square. Here, to quote an informed observer of the planets, “immovable object (Saturn) meets irresistible force (Pluto).” Which role will you play? Me? Count me out of the whole scene. I am the thing with feathers these days. You can find me at the top of the pine tree with Emily.

#797, c. 1863

By my Window have I for Scenery
Just a Sea — with a Stem —
If the Bird and the Farmer — deem it a “Pine” —
The Opinion will serve — for them —

It has no Port, nor a “Line” — but the Jays —
That split their route to the Sky —
Or a Squirrel, whose giddy Peninsula
May be easier reached — this way —

For Inlands — the Earth is the under side —
And the upper side — is the Sun —
And its Commerce — if Commerce it have —
Of Spice — I infer from the Odors borne —

Of its Voice — to affirm — when the Wind is within —
Can the Dumb — define the Divine?
The Definition of Melody — is —
That Definition is none —

It — suggests to our Faith —
They — suggest to our Sight —
When the latter — is put away
I shall meet with Conviction I somewhere met
That Immortality —

Was the Pine at my Window a “Fellow
Of the Royal” Infinity?
Apprehensions — are God’s introductions —
To be hallowed — accordingly —

She can look out her window and see an entire ocean where the rest of us would find a pine tree. The question that stays with me is: “Can the Dumb define the Divine?” She answers the question in the next line two lines: “Definition is none.” There is no way to attach words to something that springs from the mind of God. We keep trying. Writing poems about it. In the end, Emily draws us nearer and nearer to the non-verbal experience of the words, if that’s possible. Sounds and syllables that move us like a gentle tide toward a sensed apprehension. If it weren’t so lovely, the tree, the wind, the fragrance of the pine, it would be maddening to know it, while also knowing simultaneously, the definition falls short.

Proof of Love

What a day for Emily. I thought we were going to have a regular biscuits-and-eggs, “Hope is the Thing with Feathers”- morning. Nope. Today’s topics are love and crucifixion.

#549, c. 1862

That I did always love
I bring thee Proof
That till I loved
I never lived — Enough —

That I shall love alway —
I argue thee
That love is life —
And life hath Immortality —

This — dost thou doubt — Sweet —
Then have I
Nothing to show
But Calvary —

Emily is having an argument, either with someone else or with herself. She brings proof and arguments as if to a court of law. The integrity of her love stands in the docket. Someone doubts her heart. Emily advances an argument to this doubter with the statement that her capacity to love is a function of her ability to live, both in body and in spirit. As in earlier poems, she offers that her love (as a verb) is not something she directs or controls. It emanates out of her with the same spontaneous force as her spirit. Love exists with the same involuntary movement as Emily’s lungs drawing breath.

Let’s assume for the moment that this is a discussion between Emily and another person. We can construct the detractor’s claim. That person is asking to know how can he or she be the sole and extraordinary object of Emily’s love. The doubter has questioned whether Emily’s love is the eternal, specific and steadfast truth that she claims.

Emily’s fidelity is on trial here.

Someone has accused her of trifling with her affections. (There could only be another woman on the opposing side of this argument. They need so much reassurance, all the time.) Emily’s defense is to say: “My love is bigger than time or circumstance.” This is the classic guy-style argument that Shakespeare advances in some of his sonnets. The summary message being: “Get over it!” Emily takes it one step farther. She closes with a dramatic flourish, equating her own suffering at the feet of this doubting lover with the pain of the crucified Christ. (Shakespeare would never nail himself to the cross, I’m pretty sure.) Just to illustrate how really, truly vast and immortal is her love, she equates her love, the loss, the transcendence that comes after the excruciating passage through the abyss . . . to the Passion of Christ. No other analogy will do.

Her point in selecting this image is to underscore that either they both believe in this love or she will suffer the agonies of slow death. Not just any death, but the ultimate sacrifice, which is the voluntary death so that others may live. That’s how much she loves. For the sake of love, she is willing to die to grant life to others. That’s what she’ll do to shape her own life around the acceptance and belief in this love. There must be absolute acceptance. Nothing less than the fate of the world depends on it.

Emily can be very convincing when she wants to be.

Monthly Archives: January 2010

Double Dare

Define the Divine

Proof of Love

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