Emily Dickinson and poppies

As Margaret wrote in her post last week and yesterday, she and I spent a lovely and long overdue day together drawing and enjoying Spring at the Bronx Botanical Garden. We did go through the Emily Dickinson exhibit. Her garden was beautiful, and as Marg wrote last week, I was immediately drawn to the poppies. Such graceful, tissue like petals. Beautiful. It’s funny though, I’ve always loved Emily Dickinson’s poetry but as I walked through her garden and read her poems I started to get a bit aggravated. As Sara wrote in her comment to Marg’s post, it’s true, Emily D. really did seem to travel the world in her poems without ever leaving her garden. She expressed so many emotions and seemed to have so much buried within her,the poetry is just so beautiful. But I started to feel, as I walked in the tiny garden and read the poems that expressed so much, that I wanted to shake her and drag her on a train with me. Somewhere. Anywhere. Maybe to Coney Island for the day. It starts to get to me, all this Victorian yearning.  And I honestly and truly LOVE Emily’s poems…BUT. It’s true, hope is a thing with feathers, but action is a thing with feet! I’ll take action any time, even if it’s the wrong one. But I did enjoy drawing the poppies. : ) – Veronica