HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EMILY DICKINSON

Mural at West Cemetery, Amherst, Mass.

This day in 1830, my favourite poet, Emily Dickinson, was born. I went to her house and grave in Amherst a few weeks ago - beautiful places, both.

Two poems today in honour of Emily - one of my favourites of hers and one I wrote about her, 'Miss Emily Dickinson’s Coconut Cake'; it appeared in Prairie Schooner. If you would like to make Emily's cake, I posted the recipe here;  it's lovely - simple and delicious.

Happy birthday, Emily.

Emily's grave

"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—

I've heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.

*

Miss Emily Dickinson’s Coconut Cake

She blends Virgin Island coconut

with butter and sugar; sieves flour – two cups –

beats eggs with the milk of an Amherst cow,

adds cream of tartar to make everything bloom.

In her white wrapper she stands at the window,

lowers a basket of cake to the children below.

‘Love’s oven is warm’, Miss Dickinson says,

watching them eat from her spinster’s room.

Plaque on Emily's house, The Homestead