August 2014
Although I live in New York City -- not in Amherst, Massachusetts, and this is the 21st century -- not the 19th, I am nevertheless privileged to have had the very best of teachers: Emily Dickinson. I learned almost everything I know about poetry from her. Of course she's long gone -- and I'm an antique: but that's okay, isn't it?
[My songs remain unheard]
My songs remain unheard
Like footsteps in the snow --
My verse as if no word
Would chance be spoken --
My paintings yet unseen --
I care not that be so --
My spirit — ever-green —
Unbroken.
[None can tell the human heart]
None can tell the human heart --
It never will be known --
A land with neither map nor chart --
You must explore alone.
Some say it is a wilderness --
Though some say otherwise:
Not dark nor drear but luminous --
Like love in mother's eyes.
[A word is but a silhouette]
A word is but a silhouette --
It says a part but not the whole --
And, too, a shadow -- given name --
Denies description of a soul.
But words and names are all we have --
And so to use them -- well -- we try --
To spell the temper of a thing --
And tell the sparkle of an eye.
©2014 Firestone Feinberg
