Turns out, no – I didn’t post anything about my birthday. Instead, last October I began a multi-day look at the torrid love affair between Dickinson’s brother Austin and the much-younger Mabel Loomis Todd, the wife of an Amerherst College professor.
This year l decided to focus on a more cheerful topic, but to be honest, the two poems by Dickinson which include the word “birthday” are not really cheerful at all.
The first, “One year ago – jots what?” looks back on the anniversary of a past romance – and take a look at the start of that fifth stanza: If to be “Elder”— mean most pain-- I’m old enough, today LOL – well that seems appropriate for me today! The other poem, “Birthday of but a single pang,” was sent to her sister-in-large Susan on her fiftieth birthday: Birthday of but a single pang That there are less to come - Afflictive is the Adjective But affluent the doom - Well, now, isn’t that a pleasant thought – LOL – but, alas, a true one (the letter/poem in Dickinson’s own handwriting can be seen HERE). Okay, so not every birthday thought from Dickinson is gloom and doom. She wrote this line in a letter to her cousin, Louise Norcross: “We turn not older with years, but newer every day.” (LOL – I find it hard to believe how new I am today.) |
A word left careless on a page
May consecrate an eye,
When folded in perpetual seam
The wrinkled author lie.
Another of my favorite poets is E. E. Cummings. He too has a birthday coming up – on October 14th. Here’s a much more cheerful take on birthdays from Cummings: your birthday comes to tell me this –each luckiest of lucky days i've loved,shall love,do love you,was and will be and my birthday is I’ll have more about Cummings later in the month! For now, I'm going to turn my attention to this cinnamon roll that is as big as my head. |