Miss Dickinson,
Your garden is lovely in the twilight.
The oak tree by your house
Is larger and shadier
Than it was in your day.
Much has changed:
The view from your window,
The world beyond, the language.
Still, the feeling of longing
Remains the same: a long line of silk
That the soul pulls out of itself,
Like a spider spinning her thread in the autumn,
Hoping to catch not food, but the wind,
Hoping to travel far
Without knowing the destination.
This article appears in March 2018.
