An Agrammatic Ode to Emily Dickinson by Michael Smith
I.
I too run sick of silences, still language,
long take of shadow
seen on both houses and bush, sun’s maze
(heat, arc, dip and age) – tender eye
yoked to the ease of home.
Given: a poem is always a confession,
the mete end always tease,
a concession. (I am more
than this I bleed.)
Entered, the world is a jail (isn’t it?)
hooded, small. Beaten,
we burrow.
II.
Arrest of the heroic: to sap that hue
or thrust (ha) in the sounds of the quick...
You strived to tell them
(but handed the moment, the world posed)
then threw them fewer, your meteors,
tender dots tethered (my term,
my error) to the jutted edge of day.
(Oh, your glint I envy most...)
The wisdom is simple, but varied.
It’s worn by reaching down.
* The body of this poem is an anagram of Emily Dickinson’s poems #241, 441, and 475 insofar as all of the letters of the three Dickinson poems have been used (once and only once) in the formation of this poem.
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