my literary ramble...

image by Elinor Carucci from the series Crisis.

As an attempt to learn more about poetry, I will start a weekly (or almost weekly) post featuring a poem or two and an image picked out or created that I think relates to it. I shall call it "my literary ramble"...

Today's poems are by Emily Dickinson...someone who's work I have been able to relate to since I was a teenager.

I ENVY seas whereon he rides, I envy spokes of wheels Of chariots that him convey, I envy speechless hills That gaze upon his journey; 5 How easy all can see What is forbidden utterly As heaven, unto me! I envy nests of sparrows That dot his distant eaves, 10 The wealthy fly upon his pane, The happy, happy leaves That just abroad his window Have summer’s leave to be, The earrings of Pizarro 15 Could not obtain for me. I envy light that wakes him, And bells that boldly ring To tell him it is noon abroad,— Myself his noon could bring, 20 Yet interdict my blossom And abrogate my bee, Lest noon in everlasting night Drop Gabriel and me. ________________________ HE touched me, so I live to know That such a day, permitted so, I groped upon his breast. It was a boundless place to me, And silenced, as the awful sea 5 Puts minor streams to rest. And now, I’m different from before, As if I breathed superior air, Or brushed a royal gown; My feet, too, that had wandered so, 10 My gypsy face transfigured now To tenderer renown. 5