Miss Emily down the Floyd

Generally speaking, reading through the Emily Dickinson portfolio of poems is no picnic. Evasive, often deliberately ambiguous, her lines are rarely smooth; they delight in the unexpected, and her punctuation is as eccentric as she was--and still is. 

She is perfectly capable of taking on anything and everything, including God, maybe especially the God her somber father worshipped as a thoroughbred, 19th-century American Calvinist. The accusations aren't boldly stated in "There is a Certain Slat of Light," but sit with the poem for a while and her accusations emerge--that "certain slant of light/winter afternoons" is but a reminder of the despair that God himself brings upon us. And yes, you read that right. 

There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –  [think Bach, think "Tocotta and Fugue"]

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are –

If "Heavenly Hurt" isn't an indictment, it certainly is a complaint. 

None may teach it – Any – [okay, but she's certainly narrowing her options]
'Tis the Seal Despair – [ah, despair--that's what she's talking about]
An imperial affliction  ["imperial"?]
Sent us of the Air –[this "heft" is all around]

When it comes, the Landscape listens – 
Shadows – hold their breath –
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death –

Told you it was no picnic. 

But last week's walk along the river made me tell Ms. Emily that she was dead wrong. Look for yourself.

In mid-winter, the sun rides so low in the sky that it stretches hefty shadows down the river bed. It seems to me that this winter solstice phenom is what she's talking about; this is that "certain slant of light," and it's here every last winter day of every last winter because the earth has this curious habit of circling the sun in the same way every year since Creation. 

What I'm saying is that Dickinson, rest her soul, reads nature in this poem in a way that is instructive, thoughtful, mysterious, and even theological, but it's her reading, uniquely hers. When I walked down the river last week, I didn't see death. It was freaky cold and blindingly bright, but, doggone it, the world's slanting shadows were gorgeous. Check these out, a thousand "slants of light" right there on the unsullied river's path.

None of that refutes Dickinson. She takes these slants of light and turns them into a roundtable discussion of despair--or depression--and determines to hang the whole thing at least mostly on God. Let's not forget that King David did that too, often enough. In her case, in her life, in her neighborhood, maybe she wasn't wrong--I don't know that.

But I'm saying that my sojourn down the Floyd River made me something of an infidel to her righteous determinations. I couldn't help thinking that January's long-stretched shadows, not once, in a couple hours' hike, weighed heavily on me. I thought they were beautiful. Still do.

Don't get me wrong. She may be no picnic, but she's worth reading, always worth considering, even in the cold, on ice.