Poetry in the world.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

She is like a myth in her neighbourhood–it is rare she steps out of her homestead. On a recent evening, however, poet Emiliy Dickinson is spotted wandering aimlessly out in the open at a village in upper Normandy, France. She shares three poems of hers with The Delhi Walla.

1.

I never saw a Moor —
I never saw the Sea —
Yet know I how the Heather looks,
And what a Billow be.

I never spoke with God,
Nor visited in Heaven —
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the Checks were given —

2.

Heaven is so far of the Mind
That were the Mind dissolved —
The Site—of it—by Architect
Could not again be proved —

’Tis vast—as our Capacity —
As fair—as our idea —
To Him of adequate desire
No further ’tis, than Here —

3.

The Lightning is a yellow Fork
From Tables in the sky
By inadvertent fingers dropt
The awful Cutlery

Of mansions never quite disclosed
And never quite concealed
The Apparatus of the Dark
To ignorance revealed.

The visions of Emily Dickinson

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