My experience with doubt is contrary to Emily Dickinson’s. Here’s my poem. Below it is Dickinson’s “A doubt if it be Us.”
Doubt Out, damned Doubt — Be gone, wicked Thief — Murderer, maimer, usurper — Master of Deceit. You corrupt Contentment — Trespassing where you please, Invading home and heart, And plundering Peace. Your free flight is my free fall Cleaving my thinking of Clarity — Oh cruel mind that breeds Doubt — I need some motherly Charity.
Composed on March 4, 2017—eleven days after my beloved dog Pasu died.
Here’s a different take on doubt, by Emily Dickinson:
A doubt if it be Us Emily Dickinson, 859 A doubt if it be Us Assists the staggering Mind In an extremer Anguish Until it footing find. An Unreality is lent, A merciful Mirage That makes the living possible While it suspends the lives
The featured image for this post is a sculpture in a 1993 series of minimalist sculptures by American artist Roni Horn. The series titled “When Dickinson Shut Her Eyes” translates specific poems by Emily Dickinson into physical columns of aluminum and black plastic. The title of the series comes from a line in an 1870 letter where Dickinson wrote that “to shut my eyes is to travel.”
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