Emily Every Day

There are days, like today, when I don’t feel like following the prompt of Random Chance. But I have learned that resistance to Chance only leads to another poem that I’ll like even less. Also Emily isn’t here necessarily to make me happy. She’s here, or rather her poem is here, to irritate an opening. Step into the poem, breathe, and look for what lies there.

#625, c. 1862

‘Twas a long Parting — but the time
For Interview — had Come —
Before the Judgement Seat of God —
The last — and second time

These Fleshless Lovers met —
A Heaven in a Gaze —
A Heaven of Heavens — the Privilege
Of one another’s Eyes —

No Lifetime — on Them —
Appareled as the new
Unborn — except They had beheld —
Born infiniter — now —

Was Bridal — e’er like This?
A Paradise — the Host —
And Cherubim — and Seraphim —
The unobtrusive Guest —

Emily describes the sensation of meeting your soul mate. “A Heaven in a Gaze — / A Heaven of Heavens — the Privilege/ Of one another’s Eyes” That is the instantaneous click of recognition when you meet a person you have known all your life. By “life” Emily means the soul’s life in eternity, not this brief moment clothed in this flesh.

That phrase “fleshless lovers” sends chills down my spine. It’s macabre. And for her adventurous. The idea that two people “marry” each other before they are born, come into the world in human fleshy form. They may or may not find each other in this literal plane. Emily seems to think that won’t or need not happen. But that doesn’t matter because these two will be reunited and married again after death in Heaven with God and the angels in attendance. A marriage where everything is understood without explanation. There is no fear or insecurity. No earthly baggage. No garbage to take out. No dirty socks on the floor. No retreat, no infidelity, no avoidance, no quarrels. Perfect union of souls.

So, is this a lot of romantic clap-trap? I say, “yes.” Or it might as well be because there is no way for us to know if Emily has it right or if she’s just making this up. Her notion of the perfect union of souls after death strikes me as defensive. You get the feeling she is trying to clean up a mess that her heart finds itself wallowing. In the end, this poem seems like an artful dodge.

The final stanza strikes the one true chord to my ear. Here she describes the earthly wedding ceremony as a mock play, striving and failing to imitate the Heavenly marriage of the souls. That resonates with me. Weddings are performances, acting out an ideal, remote and unrealizable, although definitely intoxicating. After the wedding, the two people involved begin to learn how short they fall from that ideal. Some find a way to remain on the path together. It takes a great deal more than a romantic ideal. As long as lovers wear a coat of flesh, they will have to do a lot more with themselves than simply exist in that Heavenly Gaze.

Others succumb to the weight of failed expectations. We all know that story.

Emily speaks from her privileged bubble again. Dear girl, why bother with the world, when you have an imagination?

Great pelting rain last night. Cool gray heavy sky this morning. Full moon in Pisces coming up on Friday. I have spent the past few days cleaning junk out of my house. Old magazines and newspapers, all kinds of stuff that had to go. Finally I dug my wedding dress out of the back of the closet and brought it to a consignment shop. The woman who took it from me cooed like a dove over the fine lace. “You were a beautiful bride,” she said.

Sure, who isn’t? I thought. As I held up the dress for her inspection and admiration, I felt as though I was holding up someone else’s skin. What a relief to let that go. I feel lighter now and empty.

Today is the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Emily wants to talk about Hope.

#1547, c. 1882

Hope is a subtle Glutton —
He feeds upon the Fair —
And yet — inspected closely
What Abstinence is there —

His is the Halcyon Table —
That never seats but One —
And whatsoever is consumed
The same amount remain —

Emily wrote this poem about 20 years after her famous, ” ‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers — ” Her sense of Hope changes with age. In her youth, Hope was a light thing, borne on air. Here Hope takes on a low, heavy, disgusting aspect. I hate the word “glutton”. It disgusts me. Calls up all my judgments.

What is a “subtle glutton”? Isn’t a glutton by definition really obvious about what he’s up to? What’s the point of being a glutton if your greed is so nuanced that it might not be noticed by others? Gluttons don’t care about others. That’s what makes them gluttons in the first place.

In her earlier poem about Hope, Emily placed the word in quotation marks, as if she saw it as a concept, not a thing itself. In her later development as a poet she doesn’t dress up Hope with any extraneous punctuation but goes straight for the heart of it. Hope is not a placard, standing in for something else. It is the thing itself. Hope IS . . . a subtle glutton.

The roles of consumer and consumed shift from first stanza to second. In the first, Hope feeds on the fair. That is to say those foolish enough to believe in Hope’s promise. He eats away at us. We are consumed by Hope. The animalistic violence in “feeds” really scares me.

But wait! she says. The word “feeds” works two ways, and it all hangs on that preposition. We are suffering an illusion. Hope does not consume us. Rather hope feeds us, not feeds on us. Hope gives us food at the Halcyon Table. It is paradise to be nourished by Hope, even though at times it can feel like torture. When Hope allows us to want or expect things that are not realized, it may seem as though Hope is tearing at our entrails with the sharp teeth of a predator. We may blame Hope for this agony. But in the end, she says, we are sustained by Hope.

What else is there?

Further, that sustenance is endless. No matter how much Hope we use up, there is always more where that came from. Emily acknowledges the double-edged sword here. That Hope both destroys and creates. Hard to have a peaceful relationship with Hope, when Disappointment is always lurking in the periphery of Hope’s influence.

So today is the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Talk about drawing on reserves of Hope. We all hope for better. We have all been disappointed. It could only be Hope that keeps us here now and for this long and so far. Hope that we will be all right. Hope that the federal government will meet its obligation to us. Hope that Nature will be kind. That our lives will settle into some ease and stability. That our city will flourish. Hope eats away at us. We are down to bones and threads. As Hope feeds on us, still paradoxically, it sustains life here in the swamp.

I plan to spend a portion of the day immersed in water, moving in that medium and making an alliance. I’m asking for peace, acceptance and mercy from the water. I hope for that much.

If you need something concrete to understand the fluid nature of perception and its relationship to growth, look no further than the eyeballs in your own head. Emily finds the key right here:

#419, c. 1862

We grow accustomed to the Dark —
When Light is put away —
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye —

A Moment — we uncertain step
For newness of the night —
Then — fit our Vision to the Dark —
And meet the Road —

And so of larger — Darknesses —
Those Evenings of the Brain —
When not a Moon disclose a sign —
Or Star — come out — within —

The Bravest — grope a little —
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the forehead —
But as they learn to see —

Either the Darkness alters —
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight —
And Life steps almost straight —

The ability to see in the dark is not a commonplace skill. It ought to be. Most of us have the same machinery in our eyes that adjusts to the available light. The aperture either opens or closes to grasp as much light as possible in order to send pictures to our brain so we can navigate the terrain in front of us. One interesting thing to note is that there is often more light than we realize at first. Or so Emily says. Our eyes, clever, skillful, adaptive, just need a little time to find it. Even when there is no moon, no star, no hope, our eyes can find enough in this darkness (which is never as complete as we think) to make sense of things.

The larger darknesses of the Brain appear devastating at first. But in time and with courage our innate ability to expand our ability as needed to see things will find the way for us. The common sense way. Or that thread of hope that leads us through despair back home. We are pre-disposed to find hope.

I notice at the end that she admits she isn’t sure exactly how this works, if the dark itself changes or the eye’s ability to see changes. She says our eyes learn to see. We are given the machinery, but it has to be tested in order for us to discover the extent of its ability. We have to learn how to use what we have. And whether we are learning or the world shapes itself to us . . . the truth may be somewhere in the middle. There isn’t a clear line here, but the two parts on either side of it work together. There is something working for us. We don’t need to know how it works, only that it works.

Emily does point out that some of us are better at this than others. We may all have the same machinery in our eyeballs, but it is only the brave who go out to meet the dark. They put themselves into a place where their eyes will have to work harder. Their character will have to suffer the consequences of striving beyond what is known and familiar. Butting up against trees and other obstacles that strew life’s path. The brave ones are willing and able to absorb these blows because the reward that comes from pushing yourself into the dark is a greater freedom. A wider sense of life and one’s place in the world. Movement, trying, failing, adjusting, trying again. This is the way for a grown-up to get along.

Some, the cowards, avoid the dark, paralyzed with despair or indecision. The best of us befriend the dark. Engage with the mystery. Make an ally of it. Allow our innate talent for curiosity to override the fear or the pain. So that we may develop more fully into the adult that the world expects us to be.