Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Happy Birthday, Emily Dickinson!

Had Emily Dickinson lived, she'd be celebrating her 183rd birthday, today.

And I bet the medical or scientific professions and the media would take her apart inch by inch. I can just imagine some of the dialogue:


"She's suffering from some serious depression. Imagine shutting out people from her life!"

"But her work shows she's intelligent. She must be different. Should we suspect her? Maybe the government should sent a drone to monitor her."

"A woman like that shouldn't be left too alone to fend for herself."

"There is something wrong with her. I wonder if she's an autistic savant?

"She is rather successful though, wouldn't you say?"

"Could be, but she still may have Asperger's syndrome or Rett syndrome or PDD-NOS, or some disintegrative disorder."

"We should put her on Thorazine or Prozax or Paxil or Cymbalta or...or...something."


But I'm so glad she lived...And Thank God and the Poetry Muse that she left behind "a few crumbs" of herself.

"Hope is the thing with feathers

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me."


And who can forget the envelope poems scribbled on the backs of the envelopes?

“In this short Life
 that only-merely-lasts an hour
How much – how  little – is 
within our 
 power.”

December 10--Happy Birthday, Emily Dickinson!