Uploaded on January 12, 2012
It sifts from leaden sieves,
It powders all the wood,
It fills with alabaster wool
The wrinkles of the road.
It makes an even face
Of mountain and of plain, —
Unbroken forehead from the east
Unto the east again.
It reaches to the fence,
It wraps it, rail by rail,
Till it is lost in fleeces;
It flings a crystal veil.
On stump and stack and stem, —
The summer’s empty room,
Acres of seams where harvests were,
Recordless, but for them.
It ruffles wrists of posts,
As ankles of a queen, —
Then stills its artisans like ghosts,
Denying they have been.
—Emily Dickinson
Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson
edited by Mabel Loomis Todd and T. W. Higginson
01.12.2024: You can’t quite tell from this photo, but that’s a fake bell in the belfry, and that’s not right.