Ann Weathersby

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An Ode to Emily Dickinson

The embers of a thousand years, uncovered by the hand

A wounded deer leaps highest, I've heard the hunter tell

Once, it was a queen

and once, a butterfly

When diamonds are a legend, and diadems a tale

Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul

I felt a cleaving in my mind, as if my brain had split

She dealt her pretty words like blades, how glittering they shone

We almost wish those siren throats, would go and sing no more

The absence of the witch, does not invalidate the spell

Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me

The bees became as butterflies, the butterflies as swans

They shut me up in prose, as when a little girl

Or would they go on aching still, through centuries of nerve

This is my letter to the world, that never wrote to me

Sweet you forget but I remembered, every time for two

When girls to women softly raised, we occupy, degree

Or if myself were dreamed of her, the power to presume

The butterfly upon the sky, that doesn't know its name

She stoked her feathers, gained an arc, debated, rose again

I took my power in my hand and went against the world

©2021 Ann Weathersby — all rights reserved