1. Reality Check

 

It's such a little thing to weep,
So short a thing to sigh,
And yet by Trades the size of these
We men and women die!

[From Emily Dickinson (public domain)]

 

2. The Recluse

 

To pile like Thunder to its close
Then crumble grand away
While Everything created hid
This would be Poetry

Or Love the two coeval come
We both and neither prove
Experience either and consume
For None see God and live

[From Emily Dickinson (public domain)]

 

3. Blues in the Days of the Orange King

 

I took my Power in my Hand
And went against the World.
'Twas not so much as David had
But I was twice as bold.

I aimed my Pebble but Myself
Was all the one that fell.
Was it Goliath was too large
Or was myself too small?

[From Emily Dickinson (public domain)]

 

4. The Troubadour’s Bouquet

 

South Winds jostle them;
Bumblebees come,
Hover, hesitate,
Drink, and are gone.

Butterflies pause
On their passage Cashmere;
I, softly plucking,
Present them here!

[From Emily Dickinson (public domain)]

 

5. Seasonal Disorder

 

A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown
Who ponders this tremendous scene
This Experiment of Green
As if it were his own!

[Adapted from Emily Dickinson (public domain)]

 

6. Nocturne

 

Not knowing when the Dawn will come,
I open every Door,
Or has it Feathers, like a Bird,
Or Billows, like a Shore.

[From Emily Dickinson (public domain)]

 

7. No List No Face No God

 

They dropped like Flakes
They dropped like Stars
Like Petals from a Rose
When suddenly across the June
A wind with fingers goes.

They perished in the Seamless Grass.
No eye could find the place.

[Adapted from Emily Dickinson (public domain)]

 

8. Going Post-truth

 

Truth is as old as God
His Twin identity
And will endure as long as He
A Co-Eternity

And perish on the Day
Himself is borne away
From Mansion of the Universe
A lifeless Deity.

[From Emily Dickinson (public domain)]

 

9. Ex Machina

 

I shall know why, when time is over,
And I have ceased to wonder why;
Christ will explain each separate anguish
In the fair schoolroom of the sky.

He will tell me what Peter promised,
And I, for wonder at his woe,
I shall forget the drop of anguish
That scalds me now, that scalds me now.

[From Emily Dickinson (public domain)]