Linda's Literary Home

Author: Linda Sue Grimes

  • Emily Dickinson’s “The Soul’s Superior instants” 

    Image: Emily Dickinson - Amherst College - Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 - likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
    Image: Emily Dickinson – Amherst College – Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 – likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet

    Emily Dickinson’s “The Soul’s Superior instants” 

    Emily Dickinson’s “The Soul’s Superior instants” dramatizes the soul’s ascent beyond worldly consciousness into the sublime perception of immortality.

    Introduction and Text of “The Soul’s Superior instants”

    Emily Dickinson’s “The Soul’s Superior instants” offers one of the speaker’s most concentrated musings on the nature of mystical awareness. The little drama portrays those elevated moments when the soul withdraws from earthly distraction and experiences its eternal connection to God, its Maker.

    The poem plays out in four quatrains, each deepening the speaker’s movement away from mortal limitation and toward spiritual omnipotence—a progression often encountered in Dickinsonian poetry. 

    As in many Dickinson poems, the speaker presents the soul as a being capable of transcending ordinary consciousness and entering a realm where immortality becomes not merely a theological notion but an intuitive certainty. 

    The great spiritual leader known as “the Father of Yoga in the West”Paramahansa Yogananda taught that “the soul is the true and immortal nature of man,” a realization perceived only with direct interior awareness. 

    The Soul’s Superior instants

    The Soul’s Superior instants
    Occur to Her – alone –
    When friend – and Earth’s occasion
    Have infinite withdrawn –

    Or She – Herself – ascended
    To too remote a Height
    For lower Recognition
    Than Her Omnipotent –

    This Mortal Abolition
    Is seldom – but as fair
    As Apparition – subject
    To Autocratic Air –

    Eternity’s disclosure
    To favorites – a few –
    Of the Colossal substance
    Of Immortality

    Commentary on “The Soul’s Superior instants”

    Emily Dickinson’s speaker depicts the soul’s temporary liberation from earthly consciousness into direct communion with Eternal Reality.

    First Stanza: The Ascendant Soul

    The Soul’s Superior instants
    Occur to Her – alone –
    When friend – and Earth’s occasion
    Have infinite withdrawn –

    The speaker opens by asserting that the soul’s “Superior instants” occur in solitude, after “friend” and “Earth’s occasion” have withdrawn into infinity. Earthly duties, social obligations, and even cherished companionship must recede before the soul can recognize its own higher reality. The speaker implies that spiritual revelation demands a stillness unavailable amid worldly distraction.

    The phrase “Earth’s occasion” suggests the temporary and often noisy events associated with physical existence. Dickinson’s speaker frequently distinguishes between the fleeting nature of earthly concerns and the permanence of spiritual truth, and here she dramatizes that distinction with unusual compression. The withdrawal of earthly circumstance does not signal loneliness but liberation into a deeper awareness.

    Paramahansa Yogananda repeatedly emphasized that the soul realizes its divine identity only after consciousness turns inward through meditation and silence. He explained that “when you close your eyes in meditation, you see the vastness of your consciousness—you see that you are in the center of eternity.” 

    The speaker’s solitude resembles that inward withdrawal in which the soul ceases identifying with outward activity and begins perceiving its immortal nature. It can do this only after transcending earthly noise and activity.

    The speaker’s insistence on aloneness also recalls the mystical isolation often dramatized throughout Dickinson’s poetry. Her speakers frequently inhabit a realm inaccessible to ordinary social understanding because spiritual intuition exceeds common perception. 

    As  I have elucidated in a number of commentaries on  Dickinson poems at Linda’s House of Letters, Dickinson often observes and professes mystical tendencies as the poet’s speakers often privilege inward revelation above public validation.

    Second Stanza: The Aboveness

    Or She – Herself – ascended
    To too remote a Height
    For lower Recognition
    Than Her Omnipotent –

    The second stanza shifts from withdrawal to ascension, as the speaker describes the soul rising to “too remote a Height” for ordinary recognition. The soul’s elevation places it beyond the comprehension of lower consciousness, and thus only the “Omnipotent” can fully recognize it. The movement dramatizes an ascent from finite awareness into divine perception.

    The phrase “too remote a Height” conveys not distance in a physical sense but transcendence beyond material categories. Dickinson’s speaker repeatedly portrays spiritual experience as inaccessible to those confined solely to sensory knowledge. The soul, once elevated, exists in a realm where earthly standards lose authority.

    The speaker’s use of “Omnipotent” implies direct relation between the soul and divine consciousness. Paramahansa Yogananda taught that the soul originates in Spirit and must eventually “climb back up the ladder of consciousness to Spirit.” The stanza enacts precisely such a climb, depicting the soul’s temporary escape from mortal identity into its higher inheritance.

    Dickinson’s mystical imagination frequently renders heaven not as a distant locality but as an altered state of perception. The soul’s ascension therefore becomes an inward enlargement of consciousness rather than a physical departure from the world. Paramahansa Yogananda similarly affirmed that “the highest wisdom is Self-realization—knowing the Self, the soul, as eternally inseparable from God.” 

    The speaker’s elevated soul can no longer accept “lower Recognition,” because ordinary human judgment cannot evaluate transcendent awareness. The soul’s superior instant grants knowledge that exceeds intellectual explanation. Such moments remain rare for the unself-realized because they require the temporary suspension of mortal consciousness itself.

    Third Stanza: Death’s Removal

    This Mortal Abolition
    Is seldom – but as fair
    As Apparition – subject
    To Autocratic Air –

    The speaker now characterizes the soul’s elevation as “This Mortal Abolition,” suggesting a temporary removal of mortal limitation. The word “Abolition” indicates not physical death but the suspension of ordinary worldly consciousness. Such experiences occur “seldom,” yet they possess extraordinary beauty and authority.

    The comparison to “Apparition” lends the experience an ethereal and supernatural quality. The soul’s superior instant appears almost ghostlike because it transcends material certainty and sensory verification. Dickinson’s speaker often portrays spiritual realities as elusive presences glimpsed briefly through intuition.

    The “Autocratic Air” suggests sovereign spiritual authority. During these superior instants, the soul recognizes a reality beyond earthly systems and conventions. The elevated consciousness assumes command over fear, limitation, and mortal uncertainty.

    Paramahansa Yogananda frequently taught that human beings mistakenly identify themselves with temporary bodily existence rather than immortal soul-consciousness. He declared, “You are immortal; your trials are mortal.” Dickinson’s speaker dramatizes precisely such a release from mortal confinement, presenting the soul’s revelation as both rare and magnificent.

    The stanza’s imagery also evokes the delicate boundary between life and death that Dickinson explored throughout her poetry. Yet the speaker does not fear this “Mortal Abolition”; instead, she portrays it as beautiful and liberating. The experience resembles a mystical foretaste of immortality rather than annihilation.

    Fourth Stanza: The Vastness of Immortality

    Eternity’s disclosure
    To favorites – a few –
    Of the Colossal substance
    Of Immortality

    The final stanza reveals the culmination of the soul’s superior instant: “Eternity’s disclosure.” The speaker suggests that only “favorites – a few” receive such revelation, emphasizing the rarity of profound mystical experience to humanity in general. The disclosure grants direct intuition of immortality’s “Colossal substance.”

    The phrase “Colossal substance” conveys overwhelming spiritual magnitude. Immortality is not presented as abstraction or doctrine but as a living reality, immense beyond comprehension. Dickinson’s speaker attempts to compress infinity itself into poetic language.

    Paramahansa Yogananda taught that beneath human limitation exists an eternal identity untouched by death or suffering. He affirmed, “The ocean of Spirit has become the little bubble of my soul,” while insisting that the soul remains inseparable from divine consciousness. Dickinson’s speaker arrives at a similar realization through intuitive vision.

    The poem closes without returning fully to earthly awareness, allowing the final word, “Immortality,” to resonate with solemn grandeur. The speaker leaves readers suspended before the vastness of eternal existence itself. Dickinson’s speaker thus transforms a brief mystical instant into a revelation of the soul’s infinite destiny.

  • God Was the Idol

    Image-Created by Grok/ChatGPT/Gemini inspired by the poem
    Image: Created by Grok/ChatGPT/Gemini inspired by the poem

    God Was the Idol

    There was no Virgin Mother in the place
    Where I grew up
    In the country side

    There was no manger in the barn
    Where I grew up
    In the country side

    No wise men came to visit in the house
    Where I grew up
    In the country side

    There was no harlot in the town
    Where I grew up
    In the country side

    There was no Judas in the tree
    Where I grew up
    In the country side

    There was no cross on the hill
    Where I grew up
    In the country side

    There was no Bible in the church
    Where I grew up
    In the country side

    God was the Idol in the land
    Where I grew up
    In the country side

  • Emily Dickinson’s “Whether my bark went down at sea”

    Image: Emily Dickinson - Amherst College - Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 - likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
    Image: Emily Dickinson – Amherst College – Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 – likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet

    Emily Dickinson’s “Whether my bark went down at sea”

    Emily Dickinson’s “Whether my bark went down at sea” reveals the speaker’s serene contemplation of the soul’s destination after it departs the physical encasement.  She is envisioning a mystery so absolute that no earthly eye can resolve it—only a deeper, inward faculty of perception.

    Introduction and Text of “Whether my bark went down at sea”

    Emily Dickinson’s “Whether my bark went down at sea” is an American-Innovative lyric composed of two quatrains. Each stanza alternates between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, held together by Dickinson’s characteristic slant or near rime, with the rime scheme playing out roughly ABCB in each stanza.

    The poem thematically divides itself into two equal dramatic movements: the first stanza catalogues the uncertainties of the soul’s departure, while the second stanza redirects attention from all those unresolvable questions toward the one vital act of seeking. 

    The speaker of the poem is dramatizing the human condition of unknowing;  that is condition in which no amount of rational inquiry can ascertain where the soul has gone or how it arrived there.

    Such beloved features and qualities of life, such as the sea, the gale, enchanted isles, and mystic moorings, all function in this poem as richly suggestive metaphors for the soul’s voyage beyond the physical plane. On a second note, the speaker also quietly establishes that the proper response to this mystery is not despair but active, searching attention—the outward sweep of the eye across the Bay.

    On the literal level, the poet is creating a speaker who surveys the unknown fate of a vessel whether it sank, was storm-tossed, or sailed to some enchanted destination. The vessel (“bark”) serves as a figure for the soul in transit, as it does in so many classical and mystical traditions of poetry and spiritual teaching.

    Because the destination of the bark remains radically uncertain, the speaker catalogues each possible fate in a series of parallel “whether” clauses, a rhetorical structure that enacts the very uncertainty it names. The poem’s form thus performs its meaning: the anaphoric “whether” accumulates unanswered questions that resist resolution on the terrestrial level.

    Posing as a brief riddle in the tradition of the sea-voyage lyric, Dickinson’s little drama serves as a musing on the inscrutability of the soul’s journey after death. By leaving every question open and redirecting the gaze outward to the “Bay,” the speaker suggests that active, loving attention is the only honest posture before the great mystery.

    Whether my bark went down at sea

    Whether my bark went down at sea –
    Whether she met with gales –
    Whether to isles enchanted
    She bent her docile sails –

    By what mystic mooring
    She is held today –
    This is the errand of the eye
    Out upon the Bay.

    Commentary on “Whether my bark went down at sea”

    Emily Dickinson’s “Whether my bark went down at sea” reveals an attitude of profound equanimity before the mystery of the soul’s passage—an attitude resonant with the mystical traditions the speaker drew upon in her long, contemplative solitude.

    The poem is a contemplative musing on the unknowable fate of a beloved soul, where the speaker catalogues every possible destination and then quietly turns the whole inquiry outward into an act of searching, reverent attention.

    First Stanza: Whether This or That

    Whether my bark went down at sea –
    Whether she met with gales –
    Whether to isles enchanted
    She bent her docile sails –

    In the first stanza, the speaker begins by introducing an unnamed vessel—”my bark”—whose fate remains entirely unresolved, suspended in a sequence of parallel questions that pile one upon another without resolution. 

    The use of the possessive “my” is not incidental: the bark belongs intimately to the speaker, suggesting that this is no impersonal vessel but rather a cherished soul whose journey the speaker has watched and cannot stop watching.

    The speaker then unfolds three possible fates: that the bark went down at sea, that it met with gales, or that it sailed serenely to “isles enchanted.”  Thus the poem’s formal symmetry makes no distinction among them, granting each the same weight. 

    That the bark’s sails are described as “docile” is one of the stanza’s subtlest and most moving details: the word suggests a soul that submitted willingly to whatever course the greater wind decreed, neither resisting nor lamenting its direction.

    The “isles enchanted” carry particular resonance within Dickinson’s imaginative world, where the otherworldly realm frequently appears as a kind of luminous, removed geography accessible only to the mystically attuned. 

    As noted in the “Life Sketch of Emily Dickinson” at my lit home, Linda’s Literary Home, the poet “lived a solitary life that in many ways paralleled that of a religious monastic,” and her deep contemplative practice gave her an unusually direct intuition about such otherworldly destinations—that they are neither fable nor mere metaphor but a genuine, if unseen, plane of existence.

    Second Stanza: Then Such and Such

    By what mystic mooring
    She is held today –
    This is the errand of the eye
    Out upon the Bay.

    In the second stanza, the speaker shifts her rhetorical inquiry from sequential questioning to a single, overarching wonder, essentially asking by what invisible anchor is the bark presently held? 

    The word “mystic” performs a great deal of work here, quietly confirming that whatever mooring detains the bark, it belongs to no earthly harbor and cannot be mapped by any nautical chart. The speaker does not mourn this unknowability; she names it with the calm precision of a mystic who has grown comfortable dwelling at the edge of the visible.

    The phrase “held today” is quietly startling: the bark, though departed from every familiar shore, is not lost or destroyed but positively held—secured, in some present and ongoing way, by a “mooring,” which the physical eye cannot locate. 

    This assertion is the poem’s most consoling proposition, and it echoes the teaching of Paramahansa Yogananda, who explains in “Understanding Death and Loss” that the soul, far from being destroyed at death, exists in continuing reality:   “We exist, and that existence is eternal.  The wave comes to the shore, and then goes back to the sea; it is not lost.” 

    Paramahansa Yogananda often employed the wave/ocean metaphor to explain the relationship of the individual soul to God.  Similarly in Dickinson’s poem, just as the wave does not cease to be because it is a part of the ocean, the bark that “went down at sea” has not ceased to be; it has simply passed beyond the range of the physical eye into a different mode of existence.

    The final couplet—”This is the errand of the eye / Out upon the Bay”—resolves the poem’s formal tension with a gesture that is simultaneously humble and active. All the unanswered questions of the first stanza, all the accumulated uncertainty, converge into one clean, clarifying act: the eye goes out upon the Bay. 

    The eye does not cease its searching; it does not abandon the bark to oblivion; it performs its one possible service—the loving, attentive gaze directed toward the water where the vessel last was seen. In this way, the speaker models what grief and love, at their most dignified, actually do: they watch, and they wait, and they continue to look.

    The poem is, finally, one of Dickinson’s most compact and formally nearly perfect riddles. The bark may have been destroyed, storm-damaged, or lured to enchanted shores; the speaker cannot determine which, and the poem refuses to pretend otherwise. 

    What the speaker can do—what the poem performs for the reader as well—is keep the eye upon the horizon, sustaining attention toward a mystery that the physical senses cannot penetrate but that the soul, as Dickinson’s long monastic practice had taught her, already knows from the inside.

  • Emily Dickinson’s “This was a Poet—It is That”

    Image: Emily Dickinson - Amherst College - Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 - likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
    Image: Emily Dickinson – Amherst College – Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 – likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet

    Emily Dickinson’s “This was a Poet—It is That”

    Emily Dickinson’s “This was a Poet—It is That” dramatizes the speaker’s perception and understanding of the poet as a mystical revealer of hidden reality.

    Introduction and Text of “This was a Poet—It is That”

    Emily Dickinson’s “This was a Poet—It is That” offers one of the poet’s clearest definitions of the poetic art and the role of the genuine poet. The speaker fashions a minimalist musing that reveals the poet’s ability to extract rare significance from ordinary experience and familiar objects.

    Like many Dickinson poems, this lyric functions as a little philosophical drama. The speaker is not merely praising poets in general but is attempting to identify the mysterious process by which poetic vision transforms common reality into spiritual and artistic treasure.

    The speaker’s insight aligns with the mystical intuition described in Paramahansa Yogananda’s teachings on intuition and soul perception, wherein the individual learns to perceive divine meaning hidden beneath material appearances. Dickinson’s speaker similarly insists that the poet sees beyond surfaces into enduring truth.

    This was a Poet—It is That

    This was a Poet—It is That
    Distills amazing sense
    From ordinary Meanings
    And Attar so immense

    From the familiar species
    That perished by the Door
    We wonder it was not Ourselves
    Arrested it—before

    Of Pictures, the Discloser
    The Poet—it is He
    Entitles Us—by Contrast
    To ceaseless Poverty

    Of portion—so unconscious
    The Robbing—could not harm
    Himself—to Him—a Fortune
    Exterior—to Time

    Commentary on “This was a Poet—It is That”

    Emily Dickinson’s “This was a Poet—It is That” reveals the speaker’s conviction that the true poet transforms ordinary existence into spiritual wealth.

    First Stanza:  A Cryptic Announcement

    This was a Poet—It is That
    Distills amazing sense
    From ordinary Meanings
    And Attar so immense

    The speaker begins abruptly and somewhat cryptically by announcing, “This was a Poet—It is That.” The strange phrasing suggests that the poet cannot be defined through ordinary logical categories because poetic identity transcends temporal limitation. 

    Thus, the speaker is implying that the genuine poet remains perpetually alive through the continuing force of deep and universally significant poetic perception.  Such awareness, of course, can only be spoken of as that of  the soul because the physical encasement along with mental faculties remain mortal and pass away.

    The speaker then offers one of Dickinson’s most remarkable metaphors, claiming that the poet “Distills amazing sense / From ordinary Meanings.” The verb “distills” invokes the careful extraction of essence from raw material, suggesting that poetry refines common experience into concentrated wisdom. Much as fragrance may be distilled from flowers, poetic insight may be distilled from commonplace events and objects.

    The term “Attar” strengthens the image of spiritualized refinement because attar refers to concentrated perfume extracted from blossoms. The speaker implies that ordinary life contains hidden fragrance awaiting the poet’s transforming vision. Common reality may appear dull or repetitive to most observers, but the poet discovers within it rare beauty and significance.

    This emphasis on intuition parallels the observations in my “Life Sketch of Emily Dickinson”, where Dickinson’s “active mind and mystical intuition” are identified as central to her poetic achievement. 

    The speaker’s claims also resemble Paramahansa Yogananda’s teaching that intuition perceives truth directly rather than through the senses. The poet’s task, therefore, becomes an act of revelation rather than simple description.

    The speaker’s compact definition of poetry also reveals confidence in the permanence of art. If the poet can extract eternal fragrance from temporal experience, then poetry becomes capable of transcending ordinary decay. The poet preserves essence while physical forms perish.

    Second Stanza:  Addressing a Curious Blindness

    From the familiar species
    That perished by the Door
    We wonder it was not Ourselves
    Arrested it—before

    The speaker next turns attention toward the curious blindness of ordinary human perception. Familiar objects and experiences pass repeatedly “by the Door,” yet people fail to recognize their deeper significance until the poet reveals it. 

    The phrase “familiar species” broadens the reference beyond literal creatures to encompass all ordinary manifestations of earthly existence and even beyond earth life.  Deep thinking human beings are wont to discern the likelihood of creations beyond their ken and that sentient beings no doubt abound on all levels of being. 

    The speaker suggests that meaningful realities have long existed directly before humanity, but most individuals remain too distracted or spiritually dull to apprehend them. Only after the poet arrests attention does the audience suddenly perceive what had always been present. The poet therefore acts as an awakener of dormant awareness.

    The term “Arrested” becomes especially important because it implies both stopping and capturing. The poet halts the rushing stream of ordinary perception and compels observers to contemplate what they would otherwise overlook. Through poetic vision, fleeting reality becomes fixed long enough for contemplation.

    The speaker also introduces a subtle element of self-reproach by wondering why “it was not Ourselves” who noticed these truths earlier. Human beings possess the capacity for insight, yet they often neglect to exercise it. The poet differs not by inhabiting a different universe but by seeing more deeply into the same universe others inhabit inattentively.

    This notion resembles Dickinson’s frequent dramatization of hidden spiritual reality beneath ordinary appearances, as seen throughout my Dickinson commentaries. The speaker continually insists that profound truths surround humanity constantly. The tragedy lies not in absence of truth but in humanity’s failure to perceive it.

    The stanza therefore elevates the poet into the rôle of spiritual intermediary. The poet does not invent reality but reveals its concealed dimensions. Such revelation becomes both artistic and sacred.

    Third Stanza:  Definition of a Poet

    Of Pictures, the Discloser
    The Poet—it is He
    Entitles Us—by Contrast
    To ceaseless Poverty

    The speaker now defines the poet as “Of Pictures, the Discloser.” The poet uncovers meanings embedded within the pictures and scenes of earthly existence. Nature, human experience, and imagination become symbolic landscapes through which deeper truths emerge.

    The word “Discloser” emphasizes unveiling or revelation. The poet removes veils from perception, allowing readers to recognize riches previously hidden from them. Without the poet’s intervention, individuals remain spiritually impoverished because they fail to comprehend the significance of existence.

    The speaker’s assertion that the poet “Entitles Us—by Contrast / To ceaseless Poverty” initially sounds paradoxical. Yet the speaker means that exposure to genuine poetry reveals how poor ordinary perception actually is. Once readers glimpse the poet’s elevated vision, they recognize the limitations of their former understanding.

    The poet’s richness therefore illuminates the audience’s poverty by comparison. Still, this poverty is not merely negative because awareness of limitation may inspire spiritual and intellectual growth. The speaker is thus implying that poetry awakens aspiration toward higher consciousness.

    Such aspiration resembles Yogananda’s insistence that human beings possess hidden divine capacities awaiting development through deeper awareness. The speaker similarly presents poetry as a means of expanding consciousness beyond material appearances. The poet becomes a guide toward subtler perception.

    Dickinson’s speaker also demonstrates humility before poetic genius. The poet’s gift appears mysterious and virtually supernatural in origin. Ordinary language struggles to adequately define the magnitude of the poet’s visionary powers.

    Fourth Stanza:   What a Poet Possesses

    Of portion—so unconscious
    The Robbing—could not harm
    Himself—to Him—a Fortune
    Exterior—to Time

    In the final stanza, the speaker concludes that the poet possesses a “Fortune / Exterior—

    to Time.” Unlike material wealth, poetic and spiritual riches cannot be diminished by temporal change or worldly theft. The poet’s treasure exists beyond ordinary limitation.

    The speaker explains that the poet remains “so unconscious” of any robbery that such theft “could not harm.” Genuine poetic wealth derives from inward realization rather than external possession. 

    Because the poet’s riches arise from consciousness itself, they remain inaccessible to worldly corruption.  (See my commentary on “I robbed the woods” for expansion of this concept.)

    The speaker thus distinguishes between temporal and eternal value. Material fortunes decay, but spiritual and artistic insight survive beyond time’s destructive reach. The poet partakes of permanence precisely because poetic vision connects with enduring truth.

    This conclusion harmonizes with the mystical strain running through many Dickinson poems and noted throughout my discussions of Dickinson’s spirituality. The speaker presents poetry as a vehicle for transcending material limitation and participating in immortal reality.

    The poem finally stands as both tribute and testimony. The speaker honors the poet’s extraordinary powers while simultaneously revealing faith in the permanence of artistic and spiritual vision. Through poetry, ordinary life becomes transformed into enduring revelation.

  • Emily Dickinson’s “I often passed the village”

    Image: Emily Dickinson - Amherst College - Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 - likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
    Image: Emily Dickinson – Amherst College – Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 – likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet

    Emily Dickinson’s “I often passed the village”

    Emily Dickinson’s “I often passed the village” dramatizes the speaker’s recognition that death remains a quiet and loving continuation of existence.

    Introduction and Text of “I often passed the village”

    Emily Dickinson’s “I often passed the village” employs the poet’s characteristic hymn-like cadence and slant rime to fashion a musing on death that remains oddly tender instead of terrifying. The speaker moves from childhood curiosity to spiritual intuition, finally offering solace to those who fear loneliness, confusion, or mortality itself.

    I often passed the village

    I often passed the village
    When going home from school–
    And wondered what they did there–
    And why it was so still–

    I did not know the year then–
    In which my call would come–
    Earlier, by the Dial,
    Than the rest have gone.

    It’s stiller than the sundown.
    It’s cooler than the dawn–
    The Daisies dare to come here–
    And birds can flutter down–

    So when you are tired–
    Or perplexed–or cold–
    Trust the loving promise
    Underneath the mould,
    Cry “it’s I,” “take Dollie,”
    And I will enfold!

    Commentary on “I often passed the village”

    Emily Dickinson’s “I often passed the village” reveals the speaker’s effort to transform the fear of death into a loving spiritual promise.

    First Stanza: Wondering

    I often passed the village
    When going home from school–
    And wondered what they did there–
    And why it was so still–

    In the first stanza, the speaker recalls passing a mysterious “village” while returning home from school. The child speaker remains fascinated by the silence surrounding the place, wondering what activities occur there and why such profound stillness dominates the atmosphere.

    The “village” is clearly a cemetery, but the speaker cleverly avoids naming it directly. As in many Dickinson riddles, the speaker permits readers gradually to intuit the truth rather than stating it openly and directly.

    The phrase “going home from school” also subtly implies humanity’s passage through earthly existence. School symbolizes the soul’s earthly training ground, while the silent village represents the inevitable destination awaiting every traveler on the physical plane.

    The speaker’s youthful curiosity resembles Paramahansa Yogananda’s teaching that death should not be feared because “life and death are only different phases of one continuous reality.” The spiritual master repeatedly reminded devotees that the soul merely changes states of consciousness rather than ceasing to exist.  

    Like the speaker in Dickinson’s “There is another sky,” this speaker senses another realm existing behind ordinary appearances. The child may not yet understand death intellectually, but intuition already whispers that the silent village conceals an important spiritual mystery.

    Second Stanza: Not Knowing

    I did not know the year then–
    In which my call would come–
    Earlier, by the Dial,
    Than the rest have gone.

    The second stanza shifts from childhood wondering to mature realization. The speaker now understands that one day her own “call” will come, summoning her into that same silent village she once regarded with innocent curiosity.

    The term “call” softens the harshness of death by suggesting invitation instead of annihilation. The speaker does not portray death as violence but as a summons issued according to divine timing.

    The line “Earlier, by the Dial” implies that the speaker expects to die relatively young. The “Dial” symbolizes the clock of earthly time, which measures each individual’s appointed span within mortal existence.

    Dickinson frequently portrayed earthly life as temporary residence while hinting that eternity remains the soul’s true homeland. The speaker now recognizes that her own departure will arrive “earlier” than others expect, yet she accepts that destiny calmly rather than rebelliously.

    The stanza echoes the speaker’s confidence found in “There is another sky,” where a permanent metaphysical realm surpasses earthly mutability. In both poems, the speaker demonstrates unusual composure before realities that traditionally provoke fear and despair.

    Paramahansa Yogananda often taught that intuitive souls gradually perceive death not as catastrophe but as transition. His observation that “the soul is ever free, untouched by birth and death” harmonizes remarkably with Dickinson’s serene handling of mortality. 

    Third Stanza: Naturing

    It’s stiller than the sundown.
    It’s cooler than the dawn–
    The Daisies dare to come here–
    And birds can flutter down–

    The third stanza offers further description of the mysterious village. The speaker compares the place to twilight and dawn, two naturally quiet transitional moments that already suggest movement between worlds.

    Yet the village remains “stiller” and “cooler” than either sunset or sunrise. Such comparisons elevate the cemetery into a realm existing outside ordinary earthly motion and noise.

    The speaker’s nature imagery softens the starkness of death. Daisies “dare” to enter this place, while birds confidently descend upon it, implying that nature itself recognizes no ultimate separation between life and death.

    Flowers and birds continue to flourish around graves because nature engulfs cyclic renewal. Human beings alone recoil emotionally from death, while, apparently, the natural world calmly accepts transformation as part of divine order.

    The speaker’s use of the verb “dare” subtly acknowledges humanity’s fearfulness. Even so, the daisies possess courage enough to bloom near the graves, suggesting that innocence and beauty can survive in the presence of mortality.

    Dickinson’s speaker resembles the poet-speaker of “There is another sky,” who fashions a permanent garden untouched by decay. Both speakers envision spiritual continuity overcoming earthly transience and corruption.

    Fourth Stanza: Trusting in Love

    So when you are tired–
    Or perplexed–or cold–
    Trust the loving promise
    Underneath the mould,
    Cry “it’s I,” “take Dollie,”
    And I will enfold!

    In the final stanza, the speaker directly addresses future mourners and sufferers. Those who feel “tired,” “perplexed,” or spiritually “cold” are instructed to trust the “loving promise” lying beneath earthly burial soil.

    The phrase “underneath the mould” transforms the grave from frightening abyss into sacred shelter. The speaker insists that divine love persists even beneath the physical earth covering the body.

    The intimate expression “I will enfold” conveys warmth, comfort, and protection. Instead of depicting death as isolation, the speaker imagines it as loving embrace and spiritual reunion.

    “Dollie” likely refers to Susan Gilbert Dickinson, the poet’s beloved sister-in-law and intimate companion. The speaker’s affectionate tone therefore intensifies the emotional tenderness permeating the poem’s conclusion.

    Like the speaker in “There is another sky,” this speaker invites loved ones into a realm untouched by earthly sorrow. The invitation finally becomes not merely literary or imaginative but profoundly spiritual and eternal.

  • The Everything-I-Say-Is-Wrong Blues

    195a Image-Created by Grok inspired by the poem
    Image: Created by Grok inspired by the poem

    The Everything-I-Say-Is-Wrong Blues

    —for Red Dreads & Other Rad Loons

    Sun shines in the moonlight; nighttime stops at dawn.
    When morning sprays the flowers, the crickets carry on,
    But I’ve put a hold on what I say; my say done come and gone:
    My words will not touch you again, cause everything I say is wrong.

    Where do you get your factoids doesn’t matter one thin whit.
    Wherever you go you spin your spin; I just don’t give a shit.
    So I’ve put a hold on what I say; my say done come and gone:
    My words will not touch you again, cause everything I say is wrong.

    Right is wrong since you want it to be. 
    Left is right as you choose—
    Up is down, a smile’s a frown,
    Walking in your shoes.

    Winter might come early; summer may be late;
    Fall may never fall at all & spring may spring the gate,
    But I’ve put a hold on what I say; my say done come and gone:
    My words will not touch you again, cause everything I say is wrong.

    A slightly different version of this piece appears in my collection If My Words Could Rise.

    Image: Book Cover - My fifth published collection of poems
    Image: Book Cover – My fifth published collection of poems

  • Langston Hughes’ “Night Funeral in Harlem”

    Langston Hughes - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/sojourner - Photograph by Carl Van Vechten / Carl Van Vechten Trust / Beinecke Library, Yale - 1280
    Image: Langston Hughes – Photograph by Carl Van Vechten / Carl Van Vechten Trust / Beinecke Library, Yale – 1280

    Langston Hughes’ “Night Funeral in Harlem”

    The speaker in Langston Hughes’ “Night Funeral in Harlem” wonders how this poor dead boy’s friends and relatives are able to afford such a lavish funeral.

    Introduction and Text of “Night Funeral in Harlem”

    Langston Hughes’ “Night Funeral in Harlem” is an example of the poet’s affinity for the blues. He employs a form that includes the blues flavor, allowing the reader to hear a mournful voice that implies issues that he never actually discusses.

    The speaker’s questions are more than mere decoration, and their implications attempt to make a political and sociological, as well as religious, evaluation. The poem’s form features an inconsistent conglomeration of rimed stanzas, with varied refrains.

    Night Funeral in Harlem

         Night funeral
         In Harlem:

         Where did they get
         Them two fine cars?

    Insurance man, he did not pay—
    His insurance lapsed the other day—
    Yet they got a satin box
    for his head to lay.

         Night funeral
         In Harlem:

         Who was it sent
         That wreath of flowers?

    Them flowers came
    from that poor boy’s friends—
    They’ll want flowers, too,
    When they meet their ends.

         Night funeral
         in Harlem:

         Who preached that
         Black boy to his grave?

    Old preacher man
    Preached that boy away—
    Charged Five Dollars
    His girl friend had to pay.

         Night funeral
         In Harlem:

    When it was all over
    And the lid shut on his head
    and the organ had done played
    and the last prayers been said
    and six pallbearers
    Carried him out for dead
    And off down Lenox Avenue
    That long black hearse done sped,
         The street light
         At his corner
         Shined just like a tear—
    That boy that they was mournin’
    Was so dear, so dear
    To them folks that brought the flowers,
    To that girl who paid the preacher man—
    It was all their tears that made
         That poor boy’s
         Funeral grand.

         Night funeral
         In Harlem.

    Reading:  

    Commentary on “Night Funeral in Harlem”

    The speaker in Langston Hughes’ “Night Funeral in Harlem” jabs insults at these mourners as he wonders how this poor dead boy’s friends and relatives are able to afford such a lavish funeral.

    First Movement:  An Critical Observer

         Night funeral
         In Harlem:

         Where did they get
         Them two fine cars?

    Insurance man, he did not pay—
    His insurance lapsed the other day—
    Yet they got a satin box
    for his head to lay.

         Night funeral
         In Harlem:

         Who was it sent
         That wreath of flowers?

    The speaker begins with his refrain that features his subject, “Night funeral / In Harlem.” He then shoots in his first question that is ultimately insulting to the mourners. The speaker wonders, “Where did they get / Them two fine cars?” 

    The speaker’s dialect is intended to reveal him as an intimate with the mourners, yet his questions actually separate him from them. If he is one of them, why does he have to ask where the cars come from? His concern, therefore, comes across as disingenuous.

    The speaker then introduces the “insurance man,” who might be the reason for the “fine cars,” but no, the poor boy’s “insurance lapsed the other day.” Again, the speaker’s knowledge of the particulars of the situation clash; he knows the people well enough to know that their insurance lapsed, but yet not well enough to know who, in fact, is paying for the lavish funeral. 

    And then the speaker offers a further bit of incongruity that these poor folks have managed to supply a “satin box / for [the deceased’s] head to lay.” The speaker offers these incongruities but never manages to make clear his purpose.

    Second Movement:  A Question of Integrity

    Them flowers came
    from that poor boy’s friends—
    They’ll want flowers, too,
    When they meet their ends.

         Night funeral
         in Harlem:

         Who preached that
         Black boy to his grave?

    The speaker again introduces his next stanza with a variation on the opening refrain: “Night funeral / In Harlem: / / Who was it sent / That wreath of flowers?” Again, the speaker reveals that his distance from the mourners is so great that he has to ask about the flowers. But then he admits that he does actually know that the flowers came from “that poor boy’s friends.”

    But the speaker then insults those friends by accusing them of sending them only because “They’ll want flowers, too, / When they meet their ends,” and also implying that he wonders how those friends paid for the flowers.

    Third Movement:  Is Race Really the Issue?

    Night funeral
      Night funeral
         in Harlem:

         Who preached that
         Black boy to his grave?

    Old preacher man
    Preached that boy away—
    Charged Five Dollars
    His girl friend had to pay.

    The third stanza’s opening varied refrain asks, “Who preached that / Black boy to his grave?” He reveals for the first time that the deceased is black but does not clarify why he should offer the race of the dead at this point.  

    The had been implying that the deceased was black all along by using stereotypical Black English and placing the funeral in Harlem, which was heavily populated by African Americans at the time that the poet was writing.

    The preacher is portrayed then as a money-grubber, charging five dollars to “preach[ ] that boy away,” and the poor boy’s girlfriend had to pay the preacher the five dollar charge.  Again, how it is that the speaker knows the girlfriend paid the preacher, but that he does not know who paid for two limousines, casket, flowers?

    Fourth Movement:   Despite the Insults

        Night funeral
         In Harlem:

    When it was all over
    And the lid shut on his head
    and the organ had done played
    and the last prayers been said
    and six pallbearers
    Carried him out for dead
    And off down Lenox Avenue
    That long black hearse done sped,
         The street light
         At his corner
         Shined just like a tear—
    That boy that they was mournin’
    Was so dear, so dear
    To them folks that brought the flowers,
    To that girl who paid the preacher man—
    It was all their tears that made
         That poor boy’s
         Funeral grand.

         Night funeral
         In Harlem.

    The final stanza is a rather flabby summation of what has happened during this Harlem funeral at night. The opening refrain merely reiterates the subject, “Night funeral / In Harlem.”

    Gone is the additional commentary as appeared in the three opening refrains, but the speaker does leave the affair on a compassionate note; at least he can admit, “It was all their tears that made / That poor boy’s / Funeral grand.”  

    Despite his probing, insulting questions, he finally admits that the importance of the event is that it shows the love the mourners had for their dearly departed.

    Image:  Langston Hughes - Commemorative Stamp  http://usstampgallery.com/view.php?id=0787693b268f0944d0264088b300c02721d73814&Langston_Hughes&st=Langston%20Hughes&ss=&t=&s=8&syear=&eyear=  US Stamp Gallery
    Image: Langston Hughes – Commemorative Stamp  – US Stamp Gallery

  • Among Broken Poems

    Image: Created by Grok inspired by the poem

    Among Broken Poems

    “broken poets make broken poems” —Anonymous

    Each broken poem pays the price.
    Its sorrow wastes its wisdom on regret.
    The concrete hearts of monsters
    Play in the wind, downstream
    Fools copy reams of terror.

    We shared no love, only tomfoolery —
    You blame fairies, but it was only their dust.
    Your skylarking played out like a lead balloon
    Over the ocean rising to meet noon.

    We played in the parlor of words
    Where broken poems go to sulk and curse.
    Black veils should hide you for your perfidy.
    But I shall not judge but shall go on

    Fighting only the good fight against
    Poetasters and other putrid poseurs.

  • Langston Hughes’ “Madam’s Calling Cards”

    Image: Langston Hughes - Eakins Press Foundation - photo by Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Inspired-by-poet-Hughes-Influential-writer-was-2875941.php
    Image: Langston Hughes – Eakins Press Foundation – photo by Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964)

    Langston Hughes’ “Madam’s Calling Cards”

    Alberta K. Johnson is a character in Langston Hughes’ twelve-poem set called “Madam to You.” In this poem, she has herself some name cards printed up.

    Introduction with Text of “Madam’s Calling Cards”

    One of Langston Hughes’ great strengths as poet was his ability to advance character studies.  He brings his characters to life by demonstrating their human quirkiness.  In this series of studies of the character Alberta K. Johnson, Hughes has fashioned a fascinating little set of dramas that entertain as well as enlighten.

    Langston Hughes’ poem “Madam’s Calling Cards” is from a twelve-poem series, titled “Madam to You,” which offers a character study of a woman named Alberta K. Johnson.  The character, Alberta K. Johnson, always insists that people call her “Madam.” Each poem in the “Madam to You” series uses a personality quirk of Alberta’s to convey some aspect of her character. 

    The other titles of the poems in the series are “Madam’s Past History,” “Madam and her Madam,” “Madam and the Rent Man,” “Madam and the Number Writer,” “Madam and the Phone Bill,” “Madam and the Charity Child,” “Madam and the Fortune Teller,” “Madam and the Wrong Visitor,” “Madam and the Minister,” “Madam and the Might-Have-Been,” and “Madam and the Census Man.” 

    The poem, “Madam’s Calling Cards,” consists of five quatrains, each with the rime scheme, ABCB.  The chief feature of the character Madam Alberta K. Johnson is how down to earth she is, while at the same time wishing to assert an air of distinction.

    Madam’s Calling Cards

    I had some cards printed
    The other day.
    They cost me more
    Than I wanted to pay.

    I told the man
    I wasn’t no mint,
    But I hankered to see
    My name in print.

    MADAM JOHNSON,
    ALBERTA K.
    He said, Your name looks good
    Madam’d that way.

    Shall I use Old English
    Or a Roman letter?
    I said, Use American.
    American’s better.

    There’s nothing foreign
    To my pedigree:
    Alberta K. Johnson—
    American that’s me.


    Reading

    Commentary on “Madam’s Calling Cards”

    Alberta K. Johnson is a character in Langston Hughes’ twelve-poem set called “Madam to You.” In this poem, she has herself some name cards printed up.  Seeing her name in print seems to set her off from the crowd.  She wishes to assert that fact that she is special.

    Yet at the same time she wishes to assert her common status as an American, emphasizing that she has no foreign pedigree.  Of course, Alberta is opining well before the Reverend Jesse Jackson persuaded Americans to assign a foreign pedigree to all black Americans.

    First Stanza:  Wanted to See Name in Print

    I had some cards printed
    The other day.
    They cost me more
    Than I wanted to pay.

    Alberta K. Johnson is speaking; she tells her listeners that a few days ago, she had some cards printed, and it cost more than she had hoped to pay for such a printing job.  Alberta speaks quite plainly—even if she does so in riming quatrains.  Alberta just wanted to see her name in print, so she hatched the idea of having “calling cards” printed.

    Second Stanza:  Too Expensive!

    I told the man
    I wasn’t no mint,
    But I hankered to see
    My name in print.

    Alberta continues to elaborate on the situation, involving the process of having her cards printed. She reports her conversation with the printer of the cards. She was not happy about how expensive it was just to get her cards printed.  She told the printer that she wasn’t a “mint.”  Even though her funds were limited, still she wanted to see her name printed somewhere.

    Therefore, she settled on having a card printed up, and of course that meant  she had to spring for this expenditure.  Because she continued to desire seeing her name in print,  she continued with the transaction, despite its exorbitant pricing.

    Third Stanza:   Supplying the Ego 

    MADAM JOHNSON,
    ALBERTA K.
    He said, Your name looks good
    Madam’d that way.

    Alberta then shifts to the process of readying the type for printing. She had her named specified, “MADAM JOHNSON, ALBERTA K.”   The printer remarks that her name, with the Madam attached to it and all.  Of course, it is only natural that the printer would encourage her in her expensive endeavor; after all, he is being paid to supply Alberta’s ego with an object.  

    Thus, the printer tells Alberta that her name looks good, as he employs the term “Madam’d”; her name with Madam affix to it became all madamed up.  Alberta no doubt wholeheartedly approves.

    Fourth Stanza:  American Style

    Shall I use Old English
    Or a Roman letter?
    I said, Use American.
    American’s better.

    The printer asks Alberta what style of lettering she prefers, for example, “Old English” or “Roman”; Alberta replies that she wants him to “Use American.”   She insists that “American’s better.”  

    Of course, she is unaware that there is no particular type called “American.” She was simply confused by the foreign sounding “Old English” and “Roman,” which are, of course, part of the American style. 

    Fifth Stanza:   Not a Foreigner

    There’s nothing foreign
    To my pedigree:
    Alberta K. Johnson—
    American that’s me.

    Alberta then repeats and emphasizes the importance of keeping her calling cards lettered in the American style. She insists that “there is nothing foreign” about “[her] pedigree.”  She then repeats her name “Alberta K. Johnson” and again restates her nationality, “American that’s me.”