All right.
So Emily Dickinson is kind of the patron saint of this book.
She kind of ghosts in and out periodically.
And the reason why is because I did indeed
finish reading my book of Emily Dickinson's poem
in the oncologist's waiting room,
along with a few other books of poems.
But this is written if you are a meter nerd.
This is written in Emily Dickinson's ballad meter,
more or less.
And if you want to talk about the title, which
is extremely nerdy, I'd be happy to do that after the reading.
Takes a long time.
Finishing Emily Dickinson, First Deacon
in William Blake's Church of the Marriage of Heaven and Hell,
in the Oncologist's Waiting Room.
"Oh, Emily, goodbye!
We met in February and parted in July--
I meet your sweet velocity in every thing that flies--
in moat and star and sphere--
in bird and phosphorus of God!
Oblique, you preached obliquity--
your body, steeple for the Church of Mystery--
your bell rings on, beyond."