Because we rarely post poems on this blog, because it is one of the greatest poems in our language, and because I cannot get the first line of the poem out of my mind:
The Brain — is wider than the Sky —
For — put them side by side —
The one the other will contain
With ease — and You — beside —The Brain is deeper than the sea —
For — hold them — Blue to Blue —
The one the other will absorb —
As Sponges — Buckets — do —The Brain is just the weight of God —
For — Heft them — Pound for Pound —
And they will differ — if they do —
As Syllable from Sound —
My ear tells me that Annie Wagner’s tweets are not unrelated to this form of American poetry.
Charles,
I’ll pen haiku for your pleasure:
Brain, heart of the head
thinking purely and simply,
Vast, wide like the sky.
Beautiful, Charles, thank you for posting.
That Miss Emily was quite a character, wasn’t she? I think we still really don’t understand her more than a fraction or so, and I don’t just mean her poems…. A peculiarly American voice, indeed.
That poem smacks of Spinoza.