Poems and Emily D

I wish I were a poet. No, wait. I wish I were a good poet. You know the kinds that can communicate volumes in a single sentence. I like lines that carry a different meaning every time you read them. Unfortunately I haven't progressed much from the schoolish version of poem writing - where every line rhymed with the next one and had as much depth in it as what a 10 year old could comprehend. :(

Anyway Emily Dickinson is one of my fav. poets. Here is one of her piece that I just read some time back:

I measure every Grief I meet

I measure every Grief I meet
With narrow, probing, Eyes
I wonder if It weighs like Mine
Or has an Easier size.

I wonder if They bore it long
Or did it just begin
I could not tell the Date of Mine
It feels so old a pain

I wonder if it hurts to live
And if They have to try
And whether – could They choose between
It would not be – to die

I note that Some – gone patient long
At length, renew their smile
An imitation of a Light
That has so little Oil

I wonder if when Years have piled
Some Thousands – on the Harm
That hurt them early – such a lapse
Could give them any Balm

Or would they go on aching still
Through Centuries of Nerve
Enlightened to a larger Pain
In Contrast with the Love

The Grieved – are many – I am told
There is the various Cause
Death – is but one – and comes but once –
And only nails the eyes

There's Grief of Want – and grief of Cold –
A sort they call "Despair"
There's Banishment from native Eyes –
In Sight of Native Air

And though I may not guess the kind –
Correctly – yet to me
A piercing Comfort it affords
In passing Calvary

To note the fashions – of the Cross –
And how they're mostly worn
Still fascinated to presume
That Some – are like My Own