Saturday, June 18, 2011

She Sweeps With Many-Colored Brooms by Emily Dickinson


This is Grandma Pope in the kitchen. And I always think of her with aprons flying, so this poem is perfect. She put her leg up on a stool while she was working because of back pain. She also had migraine headaches. I remember her smearing mentholatum all over her face to try to distract her from the pain of the migraine! How did women survive? Without back surgery and magic pills that melt the migraines away. I really respect them.

I had to include the whole poem:

She sweeps with many-colored brooms,
And leaves the shreds behind;
Oh, housewife in the evening west,
Come back, and dust the pond!

You dropped a purple ravelling in,
You dropped an amber thread;
And now you've littered all the East
With duds of emerald!

And still she plies her spotted brooms,
And still the aprons fly,
Till brooms fade softly into stars -
And then I come away.

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