When last we met (HERE), it was nearing 2:00 PM, and I was biding my time in the Brook Russell Astor Reading Room in the North Hall of the Stephen A. Schwarzman building of the New York Public Library for my appointment with destiny in the Rare Book Division. The clock on the wall didn't just tick; it mocked me. Waiting in this room was a full-time job that paid exclusively in whispers and suspects all bound in leather – like a morgue for dead trees.
| Welcome to part two, dear reader. Pull up a chair – but keep your hands where I can see 'em. It's about to get weird.  | The room smelled like dust and dried ambition. I was perusing editions of Dickinson’s work – row after row of hardcovers like stoolies in a lineup. They kept their mouths shut. They held their secrets tight. But then I reached for one tome, Concordance to the Poems of Emily Dickinson, and it dropped a clue into my lap like a hot shell casing!  |
Below: I picked her out of the line-up, and when she stepped into the light, the rest of the world just melted away. She looked like an forgotten prayer someone never finished. Her cover was the color of cheap whiskey, but I was thirsty enough to drink it down anyway – and she held enough secrets to sink a fleet of ships.
That's the funny thing about this town. You think you're holding all the aces, and suddenly the deck starts dealing. Nobody wins, but everybody keeps playing.
Well, I kept playing. I’d started this thing, so it was up to me to finish it. The answer was out there. I just had to find it. The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. I was close. Real close. So close I could taste it.
Okay – LOL – so what the hell am I talking about?
On July 10, the day before my trip to New York, Boston, and Amherst, I published a post entitled, “Earth Wind or Fire?” HERE.
In that very post, I wondered which word Dickinson had used most often in her poems – earth, wind or fire. The answer, my friend, was blowing in the “wind,” with 80-plus poems. However, I confessed that I had researched various weather-related terms back in 2022, and when I went back to the archive now, in 2026, to double-check my work, I searched the word “wind” and 172 entries popped up; plus, the plural “winds” generated 118 entries. It was too much to sift through. “Therefore,” I said, “let’s suffice it to say that Dickinson used ‘wind’ in 80 poems or more.”
Then, the very next day, July 11, as I was “waiting in the Brook Russell Astor Reading Room in the North Hall of the Stephen A. Schwarzman building of the New York Public Library for my appointment with destiny in the Rare Book Division,” I pulled from the shelves the “Concordance to the Poems of Emily Dickinson.” I had no idea this book existed. LOL. It provides statistics on every word used by Dickinson in her poetry (except for “the,” “and,” and – evidently – “no,” which I’ll get to later).
Pick a word, any word, and this book tells you how many times Dickinson used it in her poetry and in which poems – plus it provides all of the lines in which the word appears.
OH. EM. GEE.
"Concordance," I whispered, "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
Well, I kept playing. I’d started this thing, so it was up to me to finish it. The answer was out there. I just had to find it. The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. I was close. Real close. So close I could taste it.
Okay – LOL – so what the hell am I talking about?
On July 10, the day before my trip to New York, Boston, and Amherst, I published a post entitled, “Earth Wind or Fire?” HERE.
In that very post, I wondered which word Dickinson had used most often in her poems – earth, wind or fire. The answer, my friend, was blowing in the “wind,” with 80-plus poems. However, I confessed that I had researched various weather-related terms back in 2022, and when I went back to the archive now, in 2026, to double-check my work, I searched the word “wind” and 172 entries popped up; plus, the plural “winds” generated 118 entries. It was too much to sift through. “Therefore,” I said, “let’s suffice it to say that Dickinson used ‘wind’ in 80 poems or more.”
Then, the very next day, July 11, as I was “waiting in the Brook Russell Astor Reading Room in the North Hall of the Stephen A. Schwarzman building of the New York Public Library for my appointment with destiny in the Rare Book Division,” I pulled from the shelves the “Concordance to the Poems of Emily Dickinson.” I had no idea this book existed. LOL. It provides statistics on every word used by Dickinson in her poetry (except for “the,” “and,” and – evidently – “no,” which I’ll get to later).
Pick a word, any word, and this book tells you how many times Dickinson used it in her poetry and in which poems – plus it provides all of the lines in which the word appears.
OH. EM. GEE.
"Concordance," I whispered, "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
 | All these years I’ve been sifting through the archive for individual words, omitting duplicate entries, checking on actual usage and meanings – and I could have just turned to the pages of this book? I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. (“at what I was looking” for you pedants.) It was then – as I was holding the Concordance to the Poems of Emily Dickinson and waiting in the Brook Russell Astor Reading Room in the North Hall of the Stephen A. Schwarzman building of the New York Public Library for my appointment with destiny in the Rare Book Division – that I remembered my recent post “Earth Wind or Fire.” |
I looked up the word “wind” and “winds” in the Concordance and guess what. The word “wind” appears in 81 poems – that eighty-first word is “wind’s,” with an apostrophe. It appears in “Like Flowers, that heard the news of Dews.” Line 10 of that poem reads, “Or Wind’s bright signal to the Ear.”
It all clicked into place. The dame in white, the poems, the concordance. I didn't need any more puzzle pieces. I had my answer. But then –
I should’ve known the deal was too sweet. I thought I had it all wrapped up in tissue paper, with pink ribbons around it. It was perfect, except that it wasn't, because I suddenly remembered that in my post of June 10th I’d tacked this on at the end: “Now, what about Dickinson's use of ‘boogie,’ ‘wonder,’ and ‘land.’”
Remember now – I was in New York – the city that doesn’t sleep. It just changes shifts – and the clock was still ticking. I knew there was more work to be done.
It all clicked into place. The dame in white, the poems, the concordance. I didn't need any more puzzle pieces. I had my answer. But then –
I should’ve known the deal was too sweet. I thought I had it all wrapped up in tissue paper, with pink ribbons around it. It was perfect, except that it wasn't, because I suddenly remembered that in my post of June 10th I’d tacked this on at the end: “Now, what about Dickinson's use of ‘boogie,’ ‘wonder,’ and ‘land.’”
Remember now – I was in New York – the city that doesn’t sleep. It just changes shifts – and the clock was still ticking. I knew there was more work to be done.
 | I turned back to the Concordance and flipped through the pages: * “Boogie,” was never used by Dickinson, so no surprises there. * “Land” (and “lands”) landed in 38 different poems. * “Wonder” (plus “wondered” and “wondering”) showed up in 27 different poems. It was as easy as that. All too often, answers play hide-in-seek in the fog, but not on this day. Nope, on this day, the puzzle pieces snapped into place like the echo of a leather-bound volume slapping shut in the Brook Russell Astor Reading Room in the North Hall of the Stephen A. Schwarzman building of the New York Public Library. |
It all made sense.
Truth doesn't just walk through the door of a library. You have to dig for it, buried deep in dusty stacks and brittle pages.
I reshelved the Concordance and glanced at the lonely scholars hunched in their chairs playing hide-and-seek with their research. None of them realized I’d just wrapped up a mystery in the middle of a concrete jungle with a jagged skyline, rattling subways, rushing heels, and desperate souls.
I realized around here a guy could break his neck staring at a blinking cursor, seductive footnotes, tangled syntax and contradictory findings, and nobody would lose any sleep over it. You close one book only to realize you have to open another.
I took a deep breath of the musty air and headed to the Rare Books Collection. It was two-o’clock. My next adventure was about to begin.
Truth doesn't just walk through the door of a library. You have to dig for it, buried deep in dusty stacks and brittle pages.
I reshelved the Concordance and glanced at the lonely scholars hunched in their chairs playing hide-and-seek with their research. None of them realized I’d just wrapped up a mystery in the middle of a concrete jungle with a jagged skyline, rattling subways, rushing heels, and desperate souls.
I realized around here a guy could break his neck staring at a blinking cursor, seductive footnotes, tangled syntax and contradictory findings, and nobody would lose any sleep over it. You close one book only to realize you have to open another.
I took a deep breath of the musty air and headed to the Rare Books Collection. It was two-o’clock. My next adventure was about to begin.
For more pics of the Concordance to the Poems of Emily Dickinson -- and misc shots from New York AND the Earth Wind & Fire/Lionel Richie concert at Madison Square Garden -- click HERE.
07.19.2026: ALL THINGS MATTER, CLICK HERE.
07.18.2026: INTRODUCTORY PLOG POST ABOUT "DIAL 'EM' FOR EMILY," CLICK HERE.
07.19.2026: ALL THINGS MATTER, CLICK HERE.
07.18.2026: INTRODUCTORY PLOG POST ABOUT "DIAL 'EM' FOR EMILY," CLICK HERE.
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