Jewel Tones and Dark Days

Today, I happened to be on the homepage for the Emily Dickinson Museum's website. Every week, a new one of her poems is posted, and this week's somehow magically pulled together many disjointed thoughts I've been having about fall. Mainly, how it makes me feel like I'm being pulled in many different directions. Here is the text:

The name - of it - is "Autumn" -
The hue - of it - is Blood -
An Artery - opon the Hill -
A Vein - along the Road -

Great Globules - in the Alleys -
And Oh, the Shower of Stain -
When Winds - upset the Basin -
And spill the Scarlet Rain -

It sprinkles Bonnets - far below -
It gathers ruddy Pools -
Then - eddies like a Rose - away -
Opon Vermillion Wheels -

(https://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/)

The first thing I noticed about this poem is the preponderance of color and color-associated words--stain, rose, vermillion, and of course, blood. Practically every other word the poem re-explodes with a new visual association, and the way it moves reminds me a lot of the way the landscape in my (And Emily's) native New England looks this time of year, especially in early fall; bursts of color that surprise and delight the eye at every turn. And that, I think, is what gets my heart racing about fall. It is a dynamic and beautiful season, it makes itself known. It screams possibility and re-birth (as does the menstrual imagery in Dickinson's poem, which I can't not point out).

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that fall is life-affirming. At the beginning of the month, my friend Anna and I did a ritual that is traditionally associated with the Jewish New Year. We walked through the woods to the stream behind my house and filled our pockets with acorns. Then we stood in the stream bed and tossed them into the water, symbolically casting off burdens and negativity. I cherish moments like this every year.

However, (and this is a big however) if we direct ourselves back to the poem and read it a few more times, violence starts to creep out from between the lines. Arteries, veins, globules, scarlet spilling. If we place the poem in the context of its time, it seems obvious that Dickinson was writing in reference to the Civil War, which was well underway when this poem was published. I one-hundred-percent believe this, but I also like to think about how Dickinson, who was so in touch with the natural world, would have considered the connection between autumn and death, that placing autumn imagery and war imagery in the same poem would have been intuitive to her. For we can't forget that fall is still, in all its glory, one gigantic natural death, the final sigh before the darkest days of the year.

So in the end, I think the paradox of this time of year is what gets me all confused and restless. It's colder, it's darker, it's depressing, but it's also exciting, and prime for creative work. Which is good, when all's said and done. So get to work, friends! And read some Emily Dickinson, or better yet, if you're close to Western Massachusetts, go and visit her house. The view from her room is amazing.