“I took my Power in my Hand”

Started reading Lives Like Loaded Guns. Phew. We’ll see. It’s good, but it is slower going than the last few books I’ve read, so I’m wondering if it’ll stymy my momentum. All to be discovered. I do find that there is a lot to underline, great turns of phrase, deep questionings that get me thinking. It is Emily Dickinson I’m reading about after all.

So I think reading the book would be good for posting here, since it is a library book and I won’t be underlining in it. I tell myself to remember to go back and write down the passages I liked, but later it’s like trying to find an idea you came up with in the middle of the night. I suppose I could use sticky notes, but I don’t want to.

This photo above is so wonderful. She’s only 16 there. In the beginning of the book she’s depicted as squirming on her death bed with a flame of auburn hair sprawled over her pillow. She had not started to go grey yet, though she was in her mid-50s. I like that image, the outward symbol of Emily Dickinson’s inner fire. From reading her poetry and reading correspondence from the few people who actually knew her, she sounds like someone who would have been fun to talk to, though perhaps a tad intimidating…

This is one of the few poems that I have memorized. Well, it might be the only poem that I have fully memorized that isn’t a song or a prayer. I like to recite it aloud to myself whenever I fail at something. Usually I do this in private.

I took my Power in my Hand—
And went against the World—
‘Twas not so much as David—had—
But I—was twice as bold—

I aimed by Pebble—but Myself
Was all the one that fell—
Was it Goliath—was too large—
Or was myself—too small?