Folio from FOLKS' MUSIC by Linda Catlin Smith

from The Gorgeous Nothings: Emily Dickinson’s Envelope Poems


A great Hope fell

How often foundering at sea

As Branches
Touch the Wind

I have no
Life but this
To lead
It here
Nor any Death but
Lest this
Dispelled
Abased from there
Nor plea
For World
To come
Nor Wisdoms
New
Except through
This Extent
The loving you -
Withheld -
Deprived from there -
Nor tie to
Expanse -

In this short Life
Look back
On Time
With kindly
Eyes -

Is there no
Sweet beneath
The sun
With this
That may
Compare -

How cordial is the Mystery

To light and
then return -

But are not
all facts Dreams

from Emily Dickinson's Open Folios

Still as the
Stern
Profile of a
Tree against
a winter sky
sunset sky -
evening -

That unfrequented
Flower
Deserving be
Embellish thee

Emerging from
an Abyss
and entering it again -

words flowed
softly in like
a shining
secret the Lode
of which the
miner dreams

This has been a beautiful day

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