For Naomi and Others

Excerpts from the book ~ Poetry For Young People

 ' Why did she write? We may never know for certain. But we do know this; Emily Dickinson chose to spend day after day in the same house, doing the same things - ordinary seemingly unimportant things - for she seemed to know that there are wonderful possibilities in the most ordinary life if we just take notice.'

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard,
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chilliest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Emily Dickinson

I'm nobody? Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us - don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

Emily Dickinson

  I was picking up a whole batch of books that my baby had thrown on the floor and proclaimed a 'boat'. It was dreary. I picked up this book and opened it up and read about Emily Dickinson and started to tear up. She spent most of her life at home and a lot of time in her bedroom. She was shy and unrecognized. She wrote over 1,700 poems but only six of them were published while she was alive. Not many people appreciated her poems while she was alive and she died at the age of fifty five. She never married as her heart was broken at a young age. Why did I tear up? I think because I spend a lot of time in my house. I feel unimportant and unseen. Yet it is another reminder that it all comes down to choice and taking notice of the extraordinary that dwells so beautifully in the every day that is my life. Today my extraordinary was this...I used up all my apples to make an apple crisp for a friend. I was going to stop on my way home to buy some more but all the power was out in town and stores were not really operational. I had also been wishing for weeks that I knew someone with an apple tree that wanted to share. I got home and transferred the baby to his bed and was feeding the other children some salmon. There was a hard abrupt knock on my door. I went to the door and our neighbor who is a rough, crusty, foul mouthed man was standing there with a massive bag of apples. I had talked to him yesterday when a tow truck was parked in front of my driveway and I waited and waited for it. He came out to yell at me and tell me to go around. I gently told him I needed to get in my driveway. He then said he was my neighbor which I said yes I knew (obviously :). He then went and told the tow truck driver to move. We had not talked before my neighbor and I.
   This bag of apples ~ It is so heavy I can barely lift it. He had brought apples back from Keremeos ~ organic, fresh and beautiful and had decided to give me some today. How was he to have any idea I had been wishing for those? That I had just come home sad about apples of all things. He blessed me so much and I am still tearing up just writing about it. Keep keeping on. Dont give up hoping and dont forget how lovely you are.
Take heart and be blessed
Love Tansy