A Poem for a Thursday #272

Emily Dickinson was a prolific poet who regularly enclosed poems in the letters she wrote to her friends. After her death, her family found forty handbound volumes containing some 1,800 poems. She is described as writing in a “keen observational tone” and she “sought to describe the intangible elements of life.”

If you were coming in the Fall,
I'd brush the Summer by
With half a smile, and half a spurn,
As Housewives do, a Fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls---
And put them each in separate Drawers,
For fear the numbers fuse---

If only Centuries, delayed,
I'd count them on my Hand,
Subtracting, til my fingers dropped
Into Van Dieman's Land,

If certain, when this life was out---
That yours and mine, should be
I'd toss it yonder, like a Rind,
And take Eternity---

But, now, uncertain of the length
Of this, that is between,
It goads me, like the Goblin Bee---
That will not state--- its sting.

If You Were Coming in the Fall
Emily Dickinson