An Existential Visit

Philadelphia

A new friend came to visit me yesterday. I met her on the train when I came back from New York to have my surgery. The train was uncharacteristically packed with college students returning to the small colleges west of Philadelphia. We spoke over the seat to one another, finding that we had alot of common likes--beliefs even. She is what I call an "old soul". We got off the train at Paoli, exchanged cards, said goodbye, agreed that we would be in touch.


Yesterday, she brought me pussy willows--one of my mother's favorites. And we talked about my future now that my surgery was complete, and more than that, perhaps a metaphysical completion. There are those including Rudolph Steiner that believe that there are seven year cycles, cycles that lead us closer to our core, our true self, our destiny. She sensed that I had just finished one. So did I.

"What comforts you", she asked, peering over frameless glasses with wire rims that were tucked neatly under her dark hair.
"She does," I answered without hesitation, clutching The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson.
"You told me you have a gift for opening a book to just the right page when we talked on the train. Would you open this for me," I asked, handing her the fat, hardback.

This is what was on that page.


A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period--
When March is scarcely here

A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels.

It waits upon the Lawn,
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope you know
It almost speaks to you.

Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes and we stay--

A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.

Poem 812
circa 1864
Amherst, Massachusetts