Dear March, Come in!
How glad I am!
I hoped for you before.
Put down your Hat –
You must have walked –
How out of Breath you are!
Dear March, how are you?
And the Rest?
Did you leave Nature well?
Oh March, Come right up stairs with me,
I have so much to tell!
I got your Letter, and the Birds;
The Maples never knew
That you were coming till I called –
I declare, how Red their Faces grew!
But March, forgive me, and
All those Hills
you left for me to Hue;
There was no Purple suitable,
You took it all with you.
Who knocks? That April!
Lock the Door!
I will not be pursued!
He stayed away a Year to call
When I am occupied
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come
That Blame is just as dear as Praise
And Praise as mere as Blame.
Emily Dickinson
The snail extrudes its house
right out of its head —
pearly, speckled, striped,
whatever is the fashion—
and lugs it everywhere
making constant additions,
at last collapsing
from utter Hauserschöpfung. [house-exhaustion]
Pairs will accrete together
and spend their lives as one
in perfect enmity
till death or fracture parts them.
Sometimes a careless one
will cement itself in:
through the walls may be heard
a feeble tapping.
A few forsake their homes
to wander, naked souls,
seeking a dream mansion;
but when one meets a band
of fellows laughing and clinking
in molluscan camaraderie,
the revelers grow silent
and quickly drift away:
listen some quiet night
and maybe you will hear
one of their tiny voices
singing its slug lament.
© Leonard Trawick
Used by permission.
Within my Garden, rides a Bird
Upon a single Wheel –
Whose spokes a dizzy Music make
As ’twere a travelling Mill –
He never stops, but slackens
Above the Ripest Rose –
Partakes without alighting
And praises as he goes,
Till every spice is tasted –
And then his Fairy Gig
Reels in remoter atmospheres –
And I rejoin my Dog,
And He and I, perplex us
If positive, ’twere we –
Or bore the Garden in the Brain
This Curiosity –
But He, the best Logician,
Refers my clumsy eye –
To just vibrating Blossoms!
An Exquisite Reply!
Emily Dickinson