Emily Dickinson…
New England spinster…recluse
rarely strayed from Amherst…
where she heard profundities in rain…
where she sequestered ribboned stacks
… fierce…unpublished poems…
where she stalked her own death
nipping at its heels…baying in its distance
where her mind…a surgeon’s scalpel…
excised experience to place it
…exposed…raw…
on sheets of linen paper
where she wrote letters…poetry itself…
asking if inspiration were
“like Melody—or Witchcraft”
asking…for her work…
“Should you think it breathed?”
She knew her worth.
How could she not.
Bonnie Marshall
March, 2012
Proem... 
She did, in deed.
Know I appreciate the effort and kindness of your comment, Ward. Thoughts and prayers..
I am not familiar with ED. I only know her from references to her lifestyle and preoccupation with dark thoughts. I recently listened to an encapsulated biography that revealed a bit more. I think I would be almost afraid to read her work. The darkness of the mind is a scary place for me I fear.
Btw I see that one of your followers is Cubby from Reowr. She went awol some time back. I was very fond of her work and of her. And worried when she just disappeared. I don’t suppose you know why. She was going away for a weekend and then never returned. It vexes me. I daresay I’ll never know. But she is missed.
I don’t know anything about Cubby from Reowr except that I, too, miss her work. About Emily…I know. She seems to obsess about death, yet sometime read at half past three. She’s just reveling in the sound of a bird singing her a song early, early in the morning outside her window, then she writes the amazing-to-get-your-mind-around last lines. She’s a favorite poet of mine. Smiles.
I came to her late, and she lit my mind.
I appreciate your reading. Smiles.