LOVE SONG FOR EMILY
(for Emily Dickinson)

You handed me
your eyes

so that I could see
as you saw.

I looking
in wonder

seeing you sew
the world together

in quick little stitches

a perfect embroidery
of knowing

drawing the thread through
& through

until nimble as a needle

I knew as you
knew.

Oh Emily
I was always

in love

with the beauty of your eyes

& how they saw
& said the world

the quick dashes
of your mind

like Braille
to my blindness

the Morse Code
of your thought

leading me through
the labyrinth of you

bound
in a nut
shell

until I arrived
at the beauty of your eyes

and you handed me
your seeing

and...I saw.


* * *

Our English teacher’s voice commanding us to open our books at Emily Dickinson. Doing as I was told...I glanced down shyly at her words looking bravely up at me and immediately at once I fell in love!

Our English teacher’s voice proclaiming “I don’t like teaching this woman…I don’t understand her! ”

Oh Emily, I knew you as you knew me and had already eloped with your mind leaving only the empty shell of a schoolboy for the teacher to shout at! Us laughing...running away together...running through the wild woods of words...gathering words and turning them into the daisy chain of poems.

Dónall Dempsey

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/love-song-for-emily-for-emily-dickinson/