Why write? Why read? Why get up in the morning? The answer may be that we’re curious creatures. We want to find out what we think (so we write). We want to find out what others think (so we read). We want to find out what the day holds (so we get up in the morning—although, sure, we also get up because we’re hungry or because our children are crying or because we have to teach or go to the doctor or turn lathes in precision parts factories). We have these brains! Brains that recognize patterns! Brains that light up when the patterns change! Brains that do all kinds of things I don’t understand and couldn’t possibly begin to tell you about. (I’m not a scientist, man.)
I know this: On today’s date, 184 years ago, a brain in a small skull registered, for the first time, the world outside the womb. That brain worked in many of the ways that brains always work, and then it worked in some new ways—evidence of which may be found in nearly 2,000 poems, some of which are among the greatest poems ever written. Here’s one, from 1862:
The Brain—is wider than the Sky—
For—put them side by side—
The one the other will contain
With ease—and You—beside—
The Brain is deeper than the sea—
For—hold them—Blue to Blue—
The one the other will absorb—
As Sponges—Buckets—do—
The Brain is just the weight of God—
For—Heft them—Pound for Pound—
And they will differ—if they do—
As Syllable from Sound—
And here’s an excerpt from a letter, also written in 1862, addressed to Thomas Wentworth Higginson:
I have a brother and sister; my mother does not care for thought, and father, too busy with his briefs to notice what we do. He buys me many books, but begs me not to read them, because he fears they joggle the mind.
The poet’s mind, somehow, was joggled; that joggling was captured within her lines. She wrote that fame is a bee, that books are frigates (or better than frigates, really), that madness is divinest sense. Reading her poems, our own brains boggle.
Happy birthday, Emily Dickinson.
