Rebecca Swift, 1964 - 2017.

I was asked to chose an Emily Dickinson poem to read – no pressure, only 1775 to choose from. I looked again at the ones I remember Becky and I reading aloud to each other when we were trying to write a play about Emily Dickinson between about 1986 and 1988. I finally chose this one, ‘We grow accustomed to the Dark –’ because it seems to me to speak to our condition, as the Quakers say, and because there’s a line about two-thirds of the way through about an encounter with a tree that made Becky laugh out loud.

We grow accustomed to the Dark -
When light is put away -
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye -

A Moment - We uncertain step
For newness of the night -
Then - fit our Vision to the Dark -
And meet the Road - erect -

And so of larger - Darknesses -
Those Evenings of the Brain -
When not a Moon disclose a sign -
Or Star - come out - within -

The Bravest - grope a little -
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead -
But as they learn to see -

Either the Darkness alters -
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight -
And Life steps almost straight.