COMPOSING

Richard Cummings

In her house in Amherst, Massachusetts

Emily Dickinson went

From room to room

Alone except for the images in her mind

She listened to birds

In the New England spring

And loved the crackle

Of red and gold leaves

Beneath her feet as she took an autumn walk

Contemplating the limitations of her transcendence

She had more than enough space

Just for living, but poetry

Demands a stringent isolation

It is possible to visualize her,

The slanted winter sunlight pouring in,

Sitting in a chair in taut concentration

Leaning over her table,

Her white blouse buttoned

High on her neck,

Writing the words pristinely

On a crisp piece of white paper

Richard Cummings’ poems have appeared in Bitterroot, Zephyr, Street, Double-Entendre, Stretchmarks, Wetlands and other publications. He has lived and taught in Ethiopia and Barbados and as the author of The Pied Piper and The Immortalists as well as The Prince Must Die under his pen name, Gower Leconfield. His comedy Soccer Moms From Hell has had several productions in New York. A graduate of Princeton and Columbia Law School, he holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge and resides in Sag Harbor, New York.