The Bravest Grope a Little [by Amanda Smeltz]

A brief reading of Emily Dickinson’s We Grow Accustomed to the Dark.

We grow accustomed to the Dark —

When light is put away —

As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp

To witness her Goodbye —

A Moment — We uncertain step

For newness of the night —

Then — fit our Vision to the Dark —

And meet the Road — erect —

And so of larger — Darkness —

Those Evenings of the Brain —

When not a Moon disclose a sign —

Or Star — come out — within —

The Bravest — grope a little —

And sometimes hit a Tree

Directly in the Forehead —

But as they learn to see —

Either the Darkness alters —

Or something in the sight

Adjusts itself to Midnight —

And Life steps almost straight.

The poem formally performs the encounter with darkness Dickinson describes:

Physical sensation of lights going out in stanza one.

Halting attempt to get one’s bearings back, stanza two.

A turn toward metaphoric darkness – & all its possible meanings – in stanza three.

Then! Ethical instruction in stanza four. The Bravest – grope a little…

And in stanza five, the results: what happens if someone in the darkness is brave.

I admire the halting motions of the early stanzas of this poem, all those dashed clauses inside the lines, emulating the uncertainty of being in literal dark. Then in the last two stanzas, the caesurae, the halting go away almost entirely. She suggests, in the lines’ fluidity, what gracefulness awaits the brave.

I especially admire the slant rhyme at the poem’s end: sight / midnight / straight. Dickinson wants us to be brave in the dark and grope around for insight. Noted. But that slant rhyme lets us know she doesn’t think life will go perfectly straight from our bravery. I like that measured encouragement. Dickinson knows too much about life to suggest we’ll get perfect sight back after being plunged into darkness. Anyone who’s grieved a death or had something wretched and wrong happen knows that. Losses are real.

But I also like that mischievous moment where she says, listen. If you grope around in the dark, as you should, you will crack your skull into a tree. That moment where I stub my toe – Fuck! – because I was rooting around in my dark kitchen at 3 am for treats and end up with a bodega BLT all over my couch, a pig in shit.

What am I trying to say? It’s hard to feel okay when I am having an Evening of the Brain. When life plunges me into darkness. I won’t feel okay and I shouldn’t. Anyone who tells me to smile at my job while I feel lost can go pound sand. But if I can at least muster the courage to feel around a bit in my discomfort and confusion… perhaps I will find new contours in the room. Or at least the roast beef in the back of my fridge.

— Amanda Smeltz

from the archive; first posted October 14, 2013