"a member of the cloud"

I am so irreconcilably hasty as far as "classic" poets go and looking askance at them as opposed to absorbing them entirely and often. I just read an Emily Dickinson poem from a collection called Love Poems published by Peter Pauper Press in some undisclosed year. I know the poems were probably public domain when the book was put out but there is still a short forward I assume they would have wanted to copyright. Oh, well. I applaud their spirit of giving. I am not sure if the editors of this tiny volume added titles to the poems or if Emily herself initially intended the titles they appear here with. The one I read is called "Renunciation." It was was sort of long in comparison to most Dickinson I have read and with much, much more vague imagery. I read it thinking of her subject being love because of the name of the collection but I think she is talking about so many things in the various stanzas and sections of this poem that it is either a misnomer to have it included here or the editor included it as way to project an expansive view of love through Dickinson's not-so-much-a-love-poem.

You know what? I knew I was going to do this. I read eight Emily Dickinson poems that were not clearly marked as separate poems all as one large, unbelievably wonderful poem. The order of these must have been selected very carefully. It works so perfectly. She has the same sort of contentment throughout the eight poems and reoccurring themes of suffering saviors, divine gifts, royalty, turmoil over what to do with the grace of earthly love and company. All of it works so well. So the link to "Renunciation" is in fact only the part of the poem that was originally named that by Dickinson. I am trying to find the rest of the parts now.

Here they are: (and read them in this order too)

Of all the souls that stand create

That I did always love

Doubt me, my dim companion! (There are two versions of this one out there. I don't know if she wrote two editions of it or if one is not genuine. I like this one better either way. It is the one from my book)

Come slowly, Eden! (This one is really racy)

God permits industrious angels

He put the belt around my life

God gave a loaf to every bird

Maybe tomorrow I will copy and paste all of those on here into one large, glorious poem. I swear read them all together in that order. It was meant to be. I feel a tad sheepish for not noticing the tiny ferns marked the end of each poem. But in the end I stumbled upon something far greater than I bargained for. As an whole poem she has such a poignant way of coming to terms with her state in regards to herself, her God, her community, her lover, nature, and daily incidentals. Very moving and very sad she didn't write them as one piece to begin with.

brandon