And I think of friendships that have had long periods of misunderstanding.
That’s what sometimes makes me think that this is a promise, rather than a reflection that she’s thinking about the future, rather than thinking about the past.Īnd that’s part of the glory of Emily Dickinson, is her playing between present, past, and future. There’s one more thing to say about this that I think is really interesting, is, “The embers of a Thousand Years / Uncovered by the Hand / That fondled them when they were Fire / Will stir and understand -” It’s just that last word, “understand.” And that, to my mind, almost implies that there has been the possibility of misunderstanding or some kind of neglect or something that was un-understandable between people who love each other or who are connected. I think it’s a lovely idea, to take this metaphor that we are made from clay and that sometimes, there’s an elemental recognition when you meet somebody. And John says that sometimes you meet somebody, and it’s as if, millions of years ago, before the silence of nature broke, his or her clay and your clay lay side-by-side. John O’Donohue has a lovely line in his book Anam Cara, where he uses the metaphor from the Book of Genesis about the human beings being made from clay. There’s people that I know, that I barely know, but that we have seen each other in some moment, and I’m always curious to pick up with them. Look at who we are now.” And that, for me, lasts decades. And we’ve seen each other and thought, “Well, hello. There are some people, where, when I’ve met them, we’ve met each other and caught each other in a glance, where, almost accidentally, both of our souls felt like they were communicating through the eyes. And the kinds of friendship that meet across difficult encounters can be some of the ones that are the ones that last the longest - even after a thousand years. I think she’s saying that we fondle these burning things, but yet we keep on coming back to it. She isn’t an idealist in the simplicity of friendship to say, oh, it’s all lovely and easy. And so, I think she understands that friendship can burn. You think, perhaps, of warming your hands by fire, but not fondling it. She speaks about “the Hand / That fondled them when they were Fire,” and so you see, in that, that she’s seeing - you don’t tend to think of fondling fire. And in a safari, you hope to see some strange things and come out alive, and that’s what I thought I’d try to do with her. “A safari” is a phrase that John O’Donohue used to use when he spoke about philosophy - to take a safari through philosophy - and I thought I’d steal that, to take a safari through the work of Emily Dickinson. And because there are no particular little books of Emily Dickinson, I decided that I’d read all 1,775 poems of hers and take a small safari through it. Number 1383 of Emily Dickinson’s poems in Johnson’s arrangements:Ī few years ago, I had been reading some things about Emily Dickinson. I somehow need to feel the air at the back of my throat, and I need to feel my vocal chords constrict in order to make the poem real. Sometimes I’ve been on a train and I’ve been reading poetry and I’ve whispered it to myself. Pádraig Ó Tuama, host: My name is Pádraig Ó Tuama, and I’m an Irish poet.