First poem

This blog is about one of the most potent forces in human history, as potent as volanoes: our imagination. With our imagination, we have created, built, explored, felt, and known our world and universe. What we "bear within" ourselves is the capacity by imagination to know our world. Poetry is one of the greatest arrows we've ever pulled from the quiver of human endeavor to get at the heart of things. Here, for example, is Emily Dickinson imagining the power of volcanoes, yet keeping her vision within the human, not geologic, realm:



Poem 175


I have never seen "Volcanoes"—
But, when Travellers tell
How those old—phlegmatic mountains
Usually so still—

Bear within—appalling Ordnance,
Fire, and smoke, and gun,
Taking Villages for breakfast,
And appalling Men—

If the stillness is Volcanic
In the human face
When upon a pain Titanic
Features keep their place—

If at length the smouldering anguish
Will not overcome—
And the palpitating Vineyard
In the dust, be thrown?

If some loving Antiquary,
On Resumption Morn,
Will not cry with joy "Pompeii"!
To the Hills return! 

--Emily Dickinson