Wednesday morning

18 January 2017

Good Morning All, 

There being no poets born on this day, we get my second favorite Emily Dickinson poem! 

 

I'm nobody! Who are you?

Emily Dickinson

I'm nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?

Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!

They'd banish us -- you know!

How dreary to be somebody!

How public like a frog

To tell one's name the livelong day

To an admiring bog!

I confess, a lot of Emily’s poems get by me, but the two or three dozen that don’t are among my all time favorites.

As a high school senior I had a literary crush on her. How could I not? She wrote her poems on scraps of paper, then shoved them into the back of her bureau drawer and forgot about them. It was dumb luck they got published after her death. She had an intense need for privacy, but would have picnics with neighborhood kids by lowering a wicker basket of food from her window for them to eat in the yard while she sat at the window.

One of my best family memories occurs in that yard of the house in which she lived in Amherst. The house is open to the public. Britta, the kids, and I were going to go inside and have a look at all the artifacts, when quite abruptly my feet said no. I told my family that for one reason or another I simply could not cross the threshold and look at all her personal stuff without her permission. They said that was fine, none of them would go in.

Today’s Holly snaps are not the most visually pleasing, but they make a remarkable pair. My friend Stephen tells me Holly’s photos regularly reveal her fondness for texture. Certainly that is true here!

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron