To Emily Dickinson

Dear Emily, my tears would burn your page, But for the fire-dry line that makes them burn— Burning my eyes, my fingers, while I turn Singly the words that crease my heart with age. If I could make some tortured pilgrimage Through words or Time or the blank pain of Doom And kneel before you as you found your tomb, Then I might rise to face my heritage. Yours was an empty upland solitude Bleached to the powder of a dying name; The mind, lost in a word’s lost certitude That faded as the fading footsteps came To trace an epilogue to words grown odd In that hard argument which led to God.