Emily Dickinson’s New Frontier

Emily will take her cedar box
of hidden poems
throwing them on a Sou’ Westerly breeze
in a New England Spring —

They will be snatched and fly
daring, dainty flutter byes
across the stretching continent
the Great Plains and New Frontiers —
The Sun — rising in ribbons
Mountains dripping scarlet sunsets
vast Miles of Evening Sparks —
as the Hemispheres come home
to early Night —

they’ll be read by lonely cowboys
drinking whisky, in the sagebrush
Indian braves campfire smoking
Sung in Saloons by husky-voiced dames
can-can dressed and a whole lotta grit
and gumption.

Emily, lightened of her load
unknotted the Skein of Misery —
Universe unstitched —
in this moment of escape
Landscape will listen —
Shadows will hold their breath
until the words are spoken.

Emily’s skipping down the stairs
of that morbid, cold wintered house
with its bare Slants of Light —
rushing out the door
throwing herself on the Open day —

Telling True, but slanted.