Be ahead of all parting, as if it were
behind you like the winter just passing now.
For among winters there's one such endless winter,
that, overwintering, your heart for all time overcomes.

Always be dead in Eurydice; with stronger song,
giving more powerful praise, re-ascend to pure relation.
Here, among the vanishing ones, in the realm of decline,
be as a ringing glass, already shattered by ringing.

Be, and know at the same time the terms of non-being—
endless reason for your intense vibration,
so you may perfectly, this one time, achieve it.

Count yourself in with the used as well as the dumb, dark
stores of bountiful nature, with the unsayable sums.
Count yourself, jubilantly, and cancel the count.


2:13

Sei allem Abschied voran, als wäre er hinter
dir, wie der Winter, der eben geht.
Denn unter Wintern ist einer so endlos Winter,
dass, überwinternd, dein Herz überhaupt übersteht.

Sei immer tot in Euridike —, singender steige,
preisender steige zurück in den reinen Bezug.
Hier, unter Schwindenden, sei, im Reiche der Neige,
sei ein klingendes Glas, das sich im Klang schon zerschlug.

Sei — und wisse zugleich des Nicht-Seins Bedingung,
den unendlichen Grund deiner innigen Schwingung,
dass du sie völlig vollziehst dieses einzige Mal.

Zu dem gebrauchten, sowohl wie zum dumpfen und stummen
Vorrat der vollen Natur, den unsäglichen Summen,
zähle dich jubelnd hinzu und vernichte die Zahl.
from the book SONNETS TO ORPHEUS / Open Letter Books
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Artist's illustration of a seated Emily Dickinson
"Emily Dickinson’s Singular Scrap Poetry"

"What [Dickinson's] scraps suggest to me is more radical: they are a unique category of verbal notation, significant both for their literary power and for their physical appearance on the page." 

via THE NEW YORKER
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Cover of The Essential Emily Dickinson, selected and with an introduction by Joyce Carol Oates
What Sparks Poetry:
Tanya Larkin on Emily Dickinson’s [I started Early—Took my Dog—]

“When I was in high school, I wrote out Emily Dickinson’s '[I started Early—Took my Dog—]' in outsize Goth-y script and taped it to my wall—understanding little of it. I had come across it while doing the dreaded twenty-page research paper for US History, the hallmark assignment of many a college prep school. My teacher was kind. He allowed me to take a patently literary topic and wrench it into a historical one, which is how I found myself leafing through Dickinson’s Collected looking for vaguely feminist poems. This one must have stood out in its forceful expression of utter female power."
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