Inspiration Along The Connecticut With Miss Dickinson

Spent an hour riding my Emerald-Black, thought-generating Nishiki, coming to a beautiful dry-land halt at one of my favorite maiden places of meditation along the sun-glinted Connecticut River in Hadley. Several people were taking advantage of weather, water, and boat, enjoying the sumptuous pleasures of a sun-devoted August afternoon. I remained on an embankment, watching water traffic, the offices of Bumble-Bee and Grasshopper, the rolling mountainsides of the "Seven Sisters" profiling an impediment to the eye's further penchant.

Monsieur Proust, Miss Emily Dickinson, and Master Webster, accompanied me safely tucked away in my well-furnished and climate-temperate knapsack. I elected to converse with Miss Dickinson since she is familiar with the Connecticut River landscape, and may even have been standing, sitting, reading, Being, in the very places I found myself occupied. Emily did most of the talking while I just listened. Here are a few topics in overview she discussed:




761

From Blank to Blank--
A Threadless Way
I pushed Mechanic feet--
To stop--or perish--or advance--
Alike Indifferent--

If end I gained
It ends beyond
Indefinite disclosed--
I shut my eyes--and groped as well
Twas lighter--to be Blind--

684

Best Gains--must have the Losses' Test--
To constitute them--Gains--

688

"Speech"-is a prank of Parliament--
"Tears"--a trick of the nerve--
But the Heart with the heaviest freight on--
Doesn't--always--move--

605

The Spider holds a Silver Ball
In unperceived Hands--
And dancing softly to Himself
His Yarn of Pearl--unwinds--

He plies from Nought to Nought--
In unsubstantial Trade--
Supplants our Tapestries with His--
In half the period--

An hour to rear supreme
His Continents of Light--
Then dangle from the Housewife's Broom--
His Boundaries--forgot--

And, the most lifting and inspiring conversation today:

657

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--