Called Home

-Image by Alan Walker - Creative Commons license

Because I Could Not Stop for Death

by Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death,

He kindly stopped for me;

The carriage held but just ourselves

And Immortality. We slowly drove, he knew no haste,

And I had put away

My labor, and my leisure too,

For his civility. We passed the school, where children strove

At recess, in the ring;

We passed the fields of gazing grain,

We passed the setting sun. Or rather, be passed us;

The dews grew quivering and chill,

For only gossamer my gown,

My tippet only tulle. We paused before house that seemed

A swelling of the ground;

The roof was scarcely visible,

The cornice but a mound. Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each

Feels shorter than the day

I first surmised the horses' heads

Were toward eternity.

I love Emily Dickinson's work. One of these days I am going to her museum in Amherst. It is only about an hour from the college where I work, but as often happens when one is close to a place, it is never visited.  But, I will go - when I retire.  One summer when I was first married my husband and I lived in Buffalo, NY while he did a summer job related to his studies. He worked with a man that had never been to see the falls in Niagara Falls.  That epitomizes the "don't see what is close to you" syndrome.

Engraved on Emily Dickinson's tombstone are the words, Called Home. So may it be for all of us.