Writing is too easy for us narcissists. There is the delusion that others care, and worse, care about you—unless none of it is about you, because all of life has been given to you. Being more than three-score years old, husband, father, architect, football player, coach and one of those the dreaded “cradle” Episcopalians, what I offer is fraught with the impossibilities of living up to those gifts. So I write about what is irreconcilable other than through God’s love and grace that passes all understanding. And I steal really good phrases. Often.
About Duo Dickinson
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“This World Is Not Conclusion” (Song of COVID-19)
By Emily Dickinson:
This World is not Conclusion.
A Species stands beyond —
Invisible, as Music —
But positive, as Sound —
It beckons, and it baffles —
Philosophy — don’t know —
And through a Riddle, at the last —
Sagacity, must go —
To guess it, puzzles scholars —
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown —
Faith slips — and laughs, and rallies —
Blushes, if any see —
Plucks at a twig of Evidence —
And asks a Vane, the way —
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit —
Strong Hallelujahs roll —
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul —
– 1862
As part of the Emily Days series on Saved by Design.
“Escape from Circumstances”: Dickinson in Quarantine
Take It from the Woman Who Self-Sequestered for Over Fifty Years
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