A Finished Feeling
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- A Finished Feeling
A visit to Dickinson's grave grants a renewed understanding of her poems.
And People come -
And put a Flower on it -
We come, searching the stony remains—Daisies point the way there—. Stand in the chill of Amherst's autumn wind, or the warm breath of summer's evening air. Reach over the black wrought iron fence. Run our fingers across the worn edges of the cold subjunctive stone. Trace our fleshy finger along the granite groove of her name and farewell memo: Called Back. Leave behind red geraniums, sealed letters, smooth stones from faraway oceans.
***
We hear cars—on Triangle Street, just outside the cemetery gate, and to the west on Pleasant Street where she used to live and look out on this Wilderness of Size. Above us, grey-blue skies swirl with white clouds. Cirrus. The gravel footpaths beneath our feet. Around us, the other quiet residents sit ceremonious in their tombs. She draws us to her. We do not expect to find her.
***
Her poems. Little doorways waiting for us to enter. We step across the threshold. She greets us like a lost cousin or loyal correspondent. Reaches for our hand. Eyes, like the Sherry in the Glass. Walks with us to that other world. Between the black slant of letters etched in ink. In the arch of a letter carved in stone. White. The Dying—but a Syllable—. "Do you think her bones are cold?" she whispers to [End Page 54] me. The Color of the Grave is Green—"But do you think her bones are cold?" The wind a prayer against the wilderness.
***
Behind a window. And the world beyond. A red geranium. Death's bold Exhibition.
***
There is a finished feeling Experienced at Graves -
Thom Tammaro is Professor of English and teaches in the MFA program in Creative Writing at Minnesota State University Moorhead. His collections of poems include Holding on for Dear Life (Spoon River Poetry P, 2004), When the Italians Came to My Home Town (Spoon River Poetry P, 1995) and Minnesota Suite (Dacotah Territory P, 1996). With Sheila Coghill he co-edited Visiting Emily: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Emily Dickinson (U of Iowa P, 2000). He is also co-editor of the forthcoming anthology To Sing Along the Way: Minnesota Women Poets from Pre-Territorial Days to the Present (New Rivers P, 2006).
