Short. Uses words you can understand.
Observes one of the small ordinarinesses of everyday – an unidentified bird - & turns it into mystery with a hint of the transcendent.
Every poem has a clunk however, & at least for readers of my English generation the one in this poem is ‘plashless’ which immediately brings to mind William Boot’s "Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole" from the novel Scoop by Evelyn Waugh.
A Bird came down the Walk—
He did not know I saw—
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,
And then he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass—
He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad—
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought—
He stirred his Velvet Head
Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home—
Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam—
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon,
Leap, plashless as they swim.
Emily Dickinson
Links
The Poetry of Emily Dickinson. Complete Poems of 1924. Bartleby.com
The real Scoop: who was who in Waugh's cast list and why - Telegraph
The real Scoop: who was who in Waugh's cast list and why - Telegraph
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