Wednesday, May 11, 2011

"I felt a cleaving" by Emily Dickinson

I felt a cleaving in my mind
As if my brain had split
I tried to match it seam by seam
But could not make them fit
The thought behind I strove to join
Unto the thought before
The sequence ravelled out of reach
Like balls upon a floor.

--Emily Dickinson



Emily Dickinson had a deeply weird brain, and this awesome poem is one of the evidences for it. I'm sure dissertations have been written on the meaning of it. I know that I can't even begin to start with what she meant; what it means to me is a description of the thought process when I'm trying to deal with something and can't quite wrap my mind around it, whether it be life events or that time I studied quantum mechanics.

1 comment:

  1. This is a first read for me and I love it.

    This strikes me visually, as a mirror reflected on itself where the objects reflected interrupt each others line of sight.

    The whole is there -fragmented.

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