"I cannot live with you"

18 August 2017:

"So We must meet apart –
You there – I – here –
With just the Door ajar
That Oceans are – and Prayer –
And that White Sustenance –
Despair – " --Emily Dickinson, "I cannot live with you"

I saw a image just now that reminded me of the last lines of this Dickinson poem. And then I felt like listening to a reading of it and found the one linked below. Sometimes just hearing someone else read a poem can open up new appreciation (for me).

I teach this one in my ENGL 312 class and point out how it's longer than a typical Dickinson poem. But beyond that surface observation, it always captivates me. The lines "And life is over there -- / Behind the shelf" come to mind frequently, too. And the juxtapositions! They culminate in that devastating rhyming pairing: the sustenance that come from "prayer" and "despair," the latter imagined as white, calling to mind manna from heaven. Despair sustains, prayer sustains, but here, at least, that's all they do. Such a complex examination of a love that can't be and can't not be at the same time.