‘Dickinson was troubled from a young age by the “deepening menace” of death, especially the deaths of those who were close to her. When Sophia Holland, her second cousin and a close friend, grew ill from typhus and died in April 1844, Emily was traumatized.[26] Recalling the incident two years later, Emily wrote that “it seemed to me I should die too if I could not be permitted to watch over her or even look at her face.”[27] She became so melancholic that her parents sent her to stay with family in Boston to recover.[25] With her health and spirits restored, she soon returned to Amherst Academy to continue her studies.[28] During this period, she first met people who were to become lifelong friends and correspondents, such as Abiah Root, Abby Wood, Jane Humphrey, and Susan Huntington Gilbert (who later married Emily’s brother Austin).’ Wikipedia, “Emily Dickinson”
The coming of a death raised up a grasp
Of understanding. It was like a threat
And not just one in books to make you gasp
Inside your bedroom, not some tight vignette
Of grief from Zanzibar’s chained tales, and not
Some cheap new reading of the Bible for
Those bored with weekday stuff. A girl was caught
Up in a fevered chariot. A door
Blew wide in Emily’s unguarded space.
The door was in an ordinary wall.
The door became a gate, an interface
With loss, infinity, and endless fall.
No second coming needed here but more
Would crowd in from that ageless slave ship shore.