Day 9

 

Here is Day 9 of your Emily Dickinson practice ✨

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Poem 1

“Pain — has an Element of Blank —” (Fr760, J650)

Pain — has an Element of Blank —
It cannot recollect
When it begun — or if there were
A day when it was not —

It has no Future — but itself —
Its Infinite realms contain
Its Past — enlightened to perceive
New Periods — of Pain.

Note: Dickinson personifies pain as timeless — without beginning or end. Pain loops into itself, erasing memory and foreclosing future. This is a chillingly precise description of suffering’s self-enclosure.

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Poem 2

“This World is not Conclusion.” (Fr501, J373)

This World is not Conclusion.
A Species stands beyond —
Invisible, as Music —
But positive, as Sound —

It beckons, and it baffles —
Philosophy — don’t know —
And through a Riddle, at the last —
Sagacity, must go —

To guess it, puzzles scholars —
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown —

Faith slips — and laughs, and rallies —
Blushes, if any see —
Plucks at a twig of Evidence —
And asks a Vane, the way —

Much Gesture, from the Pulpit —
Strong Hallelujahs roll —
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul —

Note: A meditation on faith and doubt. The “tooth that nibbles at the soul” may be doubt, desire, or hunger for meaning. Dickinson refuses neat consolations — the beyond is real, but not easily possessed.

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Poem 3

“A Route of Evanescence” (Fr1463, J1489)

A Route of Evanescence
With a revolving Wheel —
A Resonance of Emerald —
A Rush of Cochineal —

And every Blossom on the Bush
Adjusts its tumbled Head —
The Mail from Tunis, probably,
An easy Morning’s Ride —

Note: This is Dickinson at her most compressed. The hummingbird flashes past: a blur of emerald and cochineal (green and red), vibrating like a wheel. She ends with a joke — as if this miracle were just a “mail from Tunis” casually delivered.

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✨ Practice suggestion:
Try today to notice a fleeting thing — a sound, light, gesture — and describe it with the fullest intensity you can muster, as Dickinson does with the hummingbird.