Emblems of the Divine

At Emily Dickinson's Grave

—May 15, 2007

Fifty years in love with you, I'm here.You're locked behind a gate with your parents.Lavinia too. Even I need weeding.

Is this how we do it: sit and stare?I spent hours circling those effaced tombstonestill finding you and yours. Now, snug in my car,

I won't get out to celebrate your death daytoday. Please, Emily, you will? You're here …cozy, isn't it?—and glare-cold out there.

Answer me: flaming hair, white dress, gaze fixedstraight ahead! Tell me, where am I driving,the road gone, the car gone, just you and me?

Desert Places

I've had my own, and others underfootcould open any moment if I spoke.Since I'm not really versed in multitudes(loaves and fishes would fall out of my hands),I watch out for myself and my small tribe.

Miracles, yes, that's why the grass comes upwhen I command it, why the fields beyondstretch endlessly in my little yard,a different shade most every morning now. I have only to pray and pray and pray—sometimes my prayer consumes the waking hours—imagination answers every need.

God and the Imagination are one,Stevens said. I agree. And Christ will comeevery morning, become resurrectionif we ask, our eyes open worlds on worlds.Good days I see the flies as green angels,the trees along my street heavenly gates,everything here emblem of the divine,the universe changed by renaming it.