Featured Poem: After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes by Emily Dickinson
For the rest of June our weekly Featured Poem will celebrate the month of Pride. We’ve chosen poems by LGBTQ+ authors that link with the meanings associated with the different colours of the Pride flag: red for ‘life’, orange for ‘healing’, yellow for ‘sunlight’, green for ‘nature’, blue for ‘art’, violet for ‘spirit’.
Today’s choice for 'healing' is ‘After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes’ by Emily Dickinson.
After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes
After great pain, a formal feeling comes--
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs--
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?
The Feet, mechanical, go round--
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought--
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone--
This is the Hour of Lead--
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons recollect the Snow--
First--Chill--then Stupor--then the letting go--
by Emily Dickinson
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