Yesterday, I shared a painting by Frida Kahlo which I had seen at the current Kahlo exhibit at the VMFA, along with two of my favorite poems by Dickinson.
This morning I have another of Kahlo’s paintings from the exhibit, and this painting called to mind a favorite poem of mine by E. E. Cummings, “when god lets my body be.”
This morning I have another of Kahlo’s paintings from the exhibit, and this painting called to mind a favorite poem of mine by E. E. Cummings, “when god lets my body be.”
It also reminded me of Dickinson’s “I am alive – I guess” because of the poem’s opening lines:
I am alive – I guess –
The Branches on my Hand
Are full of Morning Glory –
And at my finger's end –
This poem is doubtful and melancholic at the start. The poet states, “I am alive,” but then the speak adds, “I guess.”
I am alive – I guess –
The Branches on my Hand
Are full of Morning Glory –
And at my finger's end –
This poem is doubtful and melancholic at the start. The poet states, “I am alive,” but then the speak adds, “I guess.”
 | Hmm. Is she not sure she is alive? She is holding flowers after all (stanza 1), and if she huffs on a mirror, she can see proof of her breath (stanza 2). In stanzas 3 and 4, she states “I am alive – because” – because she is not a corpse in a parlor being viewed by mourners asking "Was it conscious – when it stepped / In Immortality?" Stanza 5 opens with the same statement, “I am alive – because” – because she is not in a grave with a tombstone marked with “my Girlhood's name – So Visitors may know / Which Door is mine” (stanza 6). She is alive, indeed, and the poem ends in a more exuberant tone: How good – to be alive! How infinite — to be Alive – two-fold – The Birth I had – And this – besides, in – Thee! Yes, “How good – to be alive! How infinite – the be.” As my mother used to say, “It sure beats the alternative." |
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