My Muse - Emily Dickinson

It was a cold wintry day in Indiana, where I wrote poetry as fast as it seemed to descend on me, often 10 or more a day, - that two special friends, Tom and Ginny Marsh, both potters of the highest order, commented on the few little handwritten poems I'd shared with them.

I'd never considered publishing any of my poetry. Indeed, sharing as I had with them, in a very private and almost intimate way, was the extent of it. I say intimate because my poetry for all the years up till I came to Hubpages 3 years ago, was so private and to record my deepest being.

They compared not only my poetry with Emily Dickinson's, but my life at the time, as well. I shared a similar isolation and insulation from the world, you see. Her poems written by hand, bound into packets and tied with ribbons, were not unlike mine, written on notebook paper and bound in theme covers.

I'd gotten my introduction to her work in school - though when I was an undergraduate, it wasn't all that long after it had begun to be fairly widely published and read! But I hadn't paid too much attention to it and knew little about her life. I just had a vague awareness that she was an esoteric figure in white who wrote poetry. I wrote poetry but was not too excited about reading a lot of poets.

But immediately on that chilly day in my rural setting, I felt a strong, almost uncanny kinship with her. For years I was to study her life, her letters, and to read a lot of her poetry, though it was in her letters that I found the most of her personality.

Oh! - She'd grown up and lived her life in Massachusetts. She in New England, born about 102 years befoe me, in far Southwest Texas! Quite a contrast, though all that just fell away as I learned of her, not easy to do, since her life was so private! But I left no stone unturned to devour all that has been written about her - and by her.

This poem was written in 1972, shortly after that first introduction and after I'd begun to follow her work, and its words poured forth my impressions of the poet, the woman, the courageous, though almost monastic soul.

A little wren,

Lion-hearted,

Timid,

Yet emphatic,

Came, became,

And studied life

From inside out

With eyes so fresh

And undistorted,

No one else

Could understand.

Coded into simple words -

Bees and hummingbirds -

And locked away

With gentle hand,

Till sight and heart

Outgrew the fragile nest,

At last the wren

Lay down to rest

In cradles of

The larger Self,

Where wrens are understood

By hummingbirds,

And known

To other wrens.

_____© Nellieanna H. Hay