CLOSE TO HER
(for Emily Dickinson
1830- 1886)

Close to her love for words
with a familial feeling
like a blue bird
of being alone yet free
in our unconventional nest,
reading her secret passages
trying to understand,
she is clothed in a silk dress
at a poet's haven and royal realm
by golden butterflies
confessing to me on my laptop
her foiled imaginary sins,
we rest in folded pages
and passages of my own diary,
here by New England's flower beds
this poet's soul forgives
all that is contrary to love
and lives in eternity's hours,
we rest on greensward grass
by her cemetery river bed
I'm presenting a red rose bouquet
to Emily of Amherst
feeling obsessed like her
by being always an outsider
implanted like love birds
by branches in a first spring garden
watching from our swings
the tiny spider
dissolving its web by the birches
urged on only by the East wind
over the honey and apple walls
of the farmer's market
perched near the horse's gates
feeling as a thirsty outrider
knowing her discovery of verse
has no regret in language,
which has blessed and pardons all.