Dwelling on Dickinson

Emily Dickinson poems are as exciting as New York City. A journey through one poem is like a journey through any neighborhood in any borough whether it be Red Hook or Randall Manor. There is the familiar: I know there are blocks with sidewalks, streets with painted crosswalks, stop signs, rushing pedestrians. Then there are the surprising and often contradictory details that are unique to each place, a conflation of times - medical workers in scrubs vaping outside Richmond Hospital, hybrid vehicles rolling over cracking, cobbled streets outside Fairway. In the poems - heavens, lead, funerals, frigates, words not ascribed to specific places or times yet characteristic of her writing; they are familiar markers. At the same time, the words turn into new avenues of perception and understanding.

Dickinson wrote 1,800 poems, also know as fascicles because she made small, sewn books of her poems. There are 250-300 neighborhoods throughout the 5 boroughs. There is much to explore in both. While the fascicles can be explored anywhere and anyplace at no cost if there is wi-fi, they are complemented by local victuals and libations.

As I usually do, I love and appreciate my city. Especially now, with so many islands, cities, states ravaged by forest fires, hurricanes, and earthquakes. I am grateful to be in a place with currently functioning infrastructure, where despite lingering summer heat and an imminent mayoral election, there is relative calm, a positive, collective energy where people are fundraising and collecting donations to help the many disaster areas. Yes, there are daily lacerations inflicted by Trump’s tweets and general vitriol. Which is why it is so important to find ways to breathe love and understanding wherever we are.

Right now, my love for Dickinson is helping me forge my way through the milieu of wreckage, helping me find a safer yet not necessarily saner space to dwell. In her poems, the architecture is so layered and complex, yet it retains a facade of simplicity. Just a few narrow blocks of words yet so much room to stretch in.

The poem I have been wandering and getting lost in is #466:    

I dwell in Possibility –

A fairer House than Prose –

More numerous of Windows –

Superior – for Doors –

Of Chambers as the Cedars –

Impregnable of eye –

And for an everlasting Roof

The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –

For Occupation – This –

The spreading wide my narrow Hands

To gather Paradise –

The first stanza is a breaking down of walls in a positive and non-destructive way. “I dwell in Possibility - ” is the only certainty we all have. All homes are subject to weather and time, but there are no barriers or restrictions to possibility. But how is it “fairer” than prose? All writing can express possibility. Does she mean prose as the opposite of poetry, that poetry is a “fairer House than prose”? Or does she mean a more philosophical meaning for possibility? There are many possible ways to explore these first few lines. When I connect these to the last two lines, I begin to think of possibility as art, writing, creation. Her “narrow Hands” can gather Paradise. Our hands can gather Paradise; this can be tangible as a pot of udon noodle soup for the family or an article on climate change supported with a multitude of facts, something that can be food for the body or soul. It can be something that requires much more time and resources to gather, such as the rebuilding of a devastated home or town.

To me, this Paradise is not some promised perfection after death or an illusion not to be trusted. It is the possibility of change and revitalization. Human possibility can only be “impregnable” if we imagine and believe in it. It is something we must collectively work toward, something we need all of our Hands to gather. This requires more than just dwelling. It requires breaking down walls and roofs and false foundations, so we can see one another, our needs basically the same. We need to be looking around us through numerous Windows and work to make each life in each dwelling more of a Paradise, a more awakened place without walls.

Living in New York, I can see “everlasting” possibility. I have seen this city shrouded in smoke after 9/11 and under a deluge after Superstorm Sandy, and while people have been traumatized by these events, there has also been an outpouring of action to help those affected by these events. Every day, I see people who speak with a myriad of accents and in several languages all walking the same streets and riding the same buses and trains. I am energized by living in a city where every second, someone is making something possible, making a life better for someone, helping someone. This is the Paradise I dwell in.