The Messy Gardener Visits Emily's Garden

I do so frequently, from spring to autumn, as Emily Dickinson is my neighbor to the south, in the town of Amherst. Her father's house a museum now, its garden is still very much the way it was in her lifetime. Sitting on the stone bench in the garden to try to steal a bit of what it may have been like for The Belle of Amherst, has become a sort of personal ritual. Perhaps next time I visit I won't forget a volume of her poems to read!

Nature, the gentlest mother,
Impatient of no child,
The feeblest or the waywardest, --
Her admonition mild

In forest and the hill
By traveller is heard,
Restraining rampant squirrel
Or too impetuous bird.

How fair her conversation,
A summer afternoon, --
Her household, her assembly;
And when the sun goes down

Her voice among the aisles
Incites the timid prayer

Of the minutest cricket,
The most unworthy flower.

When all the children sleep
She turns as long away
As will suffice to light her lamps;
Then, bending from the sky

With infinite affection
And infiniter care,
Her golden finger on her lip,
Wills silence everywhere.

~ Emily Dickinson