"the Scaffolds drop / Affirming it a Soul."

30 August 2020: In reading Kamilla Denman's "Emily Dickinson's Volcanic Punctuation" for my seminar, I came across her reading of the poem below, one I wasn't familiar with before. Denman writes, "Towards the end of her life, [Dickinson] described the process by which one moves from propped up dependence to mature self-sufficiency" (41). 

The Props assist the House
Until the House is built
And then the Props withdraw
And adequate, erect,
The House support itself
And cease to recollect
The Augur and the Carpenter –
Just such a retrospect
Hath the perfected Life –
A Past of Plank and Nail
And slowness – then the scaffolds drop
Affirming it a Soul –

I've been thinking about this since I read it yesterday, in fact, in the light of my own journey, specifically the last year and a half and especially since March. Though I hope I am not anywhere near the end of my life, I do think where I am (internally?) is a place of removing some of those props and structures. Like it or not, I am seeing how it goes with even more self-sufficiency. I am still, at 43, figuring out just what this Soul of mine is like and is capable of. I suppose this process never really ends. 

Work Cited

Denman, Kamilla. “Emily Dickinson’s Volcanic Punctuation.” The Emily Dickinson Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring 1993, pp. 22-46.