How many schemes may die

How many schemes may die
In one short Afternoon
Entirely unknown
To those they most concern--
The man that was not lost
Because by accident
He varied by a Ribbon's width
From his accustomed route--
The Love that would not try
Because beside the Door
Some unsuspecting Horse was tied
Surveying his Despair
(F 1326)

There are so many things that happen, seemingly by chance, that alter lives and expectations. It was Robert Burns who wrote "The best laid schemes of mice and men oft go awry, and leave us nothing but grief and pain for promised joy." In this particular poem, a person may have planned the ruin of another, in the case of the man walking along the road. The death of the man in the road was avoided when the man, ignorant of his danger, changed his normal route by the slightest bit. Certainly the one who schemed against him was thwarted, this person's plans dying in the short afternoon, the failure of the plan to kill another dying unbeknowst to the planner.

The poem reads as if this man, who narrowly missed his death, is the very one whose own route was changed by the appearance of a horse at the doorway. The implication appears to be that this man was visiting his beloved, perhaps wife or sweetheart or lover, to find another's animal tied out front. Seeing this unexpected horse, Dickinson's poem implies that the man would not try to love or pursue his love. In this way, the man's plans were additionally thwarted. Perhaps this beloved was not unfaithful, perhaps the original schemer wished to drive a wedge between the man and his love. The beloved's plans of love and a future or continued future with her lover could equally have been thwarted, all unknown to her.

and... it's entirely possible that I have completely misinterpreted this poem.

If I can stop one Heart from breaking

If I can stop one heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain
If I can ease one Life the Aching
Or cool one Pain

Or help one fainting Robin
Unto his Nest again
I shall not live in vain.
(F 982)

At the heart of this poem is the longing for purpose, the search for significance. Purpose is not always found in the earth-moving or phenomenal acts of greatness on an epic level. The root of purpose can be found in the most basic, every-day decisions. It begins with the smallest of acts when no one is watching or would care. These silent, otherwise unknown acts are the foundations upon which all the rest of one's character is built.

This speaker desperately seeks to make an imprint upon another, to make even the smallest difference. It is the echo of Mother Teresa's famous line: "Kindness is a language we all understand. Even the blind can see it and the deaf can hear it." The smallest gift of kindness can reap exponential rewards, can begin a chain reaction. But that chain must begin somewhere, and the speaker in this poem asserts that it will begin with him or her. Without a purpose, some might argue without a meaningful purpose, life becomes an unbearable burden and loses its meaning.

This dirty-- little-- Heart

This dirty-- little-- Heart
Is freely mine--
I won it with a Bun--
A freckled shrine

But eligibility fair
To him who sees
The Visage of the Soul
And not the knees.
(F 1378)

There is a child-like simplicity in this poem, one that looks to the imporant things beyond sraped knees and finds beauty and joy. The opening lines of a "dirty-- little-- Heart" surprise the reader by inverting the reader's expectations. There is no pure heart, no courtly love or lofty intentions. The prize of love is not a magnanimous deed or heroic act, but rather is a "bun"-- common place. Dickinson draws out the theme of love found in the everyday, rooted deeper than appearances.

Love is not based upon looks or first impressions. Perhaps the overlooked knees were dirty from time spent in a hothouse tending plants, or perhaps they were scraped from stumbles while wandering through fields. Love looks beyond these things, peering into the very essences-- the soul. The one who loves peers beyond the superficial and lookes out through the perspective of the core of the one who is loved. To borrow a phrase from a friend: We don't love people because they are beautiful; people are beautiful because we love them.

The Luxury to apprehend

When people think about the poetry of Emily Dickinson, they so often think of her as the nature poet or as the flat-out confusing poet. She is not readily associated with love poetry, and certainly her poems are nothing like a Shakespearean or Donne sonnet, nor do they bear much obvious resemblance to something like Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poems. And yet some of Dickinson's poems are powerful and evocative love poems, though often in an almost obsessive way, fully consumed by the beloved or longing to be consumed by the beloved. Her language is highly charged, highly passionate.

Dickinson scholar Brenda Wineapple writes about Dickinson's relationships, and she makes mention of this intensity that the poet possessed. Relationships were intense and Dickinson took them seriously, from her true friendships through what some speculate might be love relationships, though there is great ambiguity concerning any lovers Dickinson may have had. Her poems are, to borrow phrases from the poem below, of the "epicure" and are fully laden with "sumptuousness supplies". Excess and lavishness are the course, parting from courtly admiration in favor of pure extravagance-- extravagance sharply contrasted with the precise and yet concise lanuage of Dickinson:

The Luxury to apprehend
The Luxury 'twould be
To look at thee a single time
An Epicure of me
In whatsoever presences makes
Till for a further food
I scarcely recollect to starve
So first am I supplied.

The Luxury to meditate
The Luxury it was
To banquet on they Countenance
A sumptuousness supplies
To plainer Days whose Table, far
As Certainty can see
Is laden with a single Crumb--
The Consciousness of thee--
(F 819)