Travels with Emily

The folks over at Tweetspeak Poetry cooked up a crazy, international incident last week when they designated Wednesday, July 17th 'Take Your Poet to Work' day. 
~~~~~~~~~
I took Emily Dickinson with me;
We had breakfast
Then it was time
to head out to the yard....I put her in the pocket of my garden tool belt
She hung out in the crocosmia while I weeded and pruned
and echoed her approval at the fruit of my labors
(you can hear her, right?) --a pile of weeds and garden debris
then we headed inside so she could help me unpack boxes
(books from our bookshelves--
6 month remodel project--don't ask.)
 and we found her book!
And I took her verse and parsed it into a poem (sort of)

We are long past the pensive spring
and the punctual snow is but a dream.
Emily reminds me, mid-summer
that water is taught by thirst
and she should know about water,
writing as she did about frogs
who tell your name the livelong June
to an admiring bog.

God's creatures far and wide
appeared in her lines,
not the least of which - the spider
an artist, (tho' never employed)
or the bat with wrinkled wings
a small umbrella quaintly halved.
Oh, she had a way with words--
I've never seen her likeness since.
~~~~~~~~~~~ 
All lines bold and italicized are from 'Selected Poems',
James Reeves Editor, 1959
You'll have to read to find out which ones are which.........

Linking for all the fun over at dVerse Pub Open Link Night 106.

7 comments:

  1. I'll bet Emily was tired after all your adventures. Did you have to iron her??

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  2. love this, love "found poems" from poems...

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  3. nice blend in of her lines in your own...and a pretty fun little day you had there with emily as well...

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  4. Enjoyed the poem. You,two, should collaborate again.

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  5. Nice and creative use of Emily's lines, I may have to pick up a book of her work :) ~peace, Jason

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