Meditation on Some
Emily Dickinson Lines
by Melissa Hofmann

I. "Enamored of the parting West -"

I come,
even though you are leaving,
to witness the dimming of the day,
straining to see the face of failure in the fading light,
so I may know her next time.

It is not for this that I love you,
yet it is all you leave me with,
hoping that with absence
my love will set
the moment you avert your gaze.

I chase the sun across the sky,
fly three thousand miles to catch
a glimpse before you silently slip
below the horizon.

II. "The peace - the flight -the Amethyst -
Night's possibility!"

The colors burn into oblivion
over an ocean stilled by grief
and lulled by beauty.

There is someplace else you mean to be.

As you drive north into numbness,
I look for the first star to appear.


III. "…what the lips in the West say,
when the sun goes down…"

This sort of thing happens every day
to others, as inexorable as gravity.
I may stand still, but the earth will turn;
the heavens only appear to move.

But our view was still geocentric
as the sun bowed down
and the harvest moon jumped up to greet us
that October night, crisp with novelty,
as we kissed on our throne of hill,
the city below our glittering crown.

Now you say good night but not good morning.

IV. "… so says the Dawn."

I am the East
and rise each morning
with hope.
Dew-covered in dreams,
I try to get endings and beginnings
to speak the same language.

"Homes of the Spirit"
by Brant Kingman

Melissa A. Hofmann, a 24-year-old lesbian poet, revels in her love of words and writes to fulfill her need for narrative. Her first published poem was "Fair Weather," written when she was in fourth grade. Since then, she has come to continually explore the artistic and adventurous aspects of herself through writing verse. Gradually poetry has evolved into her natural genre. In 1997 Melissa graduated from The College of New Jersey with a bachelor's degree in English, and she is using the time before graduate school to experience more of life. She works as a senior library assistant, enjoying the atmosphere, stimulation, and benefits of working in an academic setting. Melissa writes to acknowledge, celebrate, mourn, recreate, and understand her relationships to people and events, in order to fully experience and grow from them. Emily Dickinson is one of her favorite poets.

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