Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium: Facsimile Edition
From the meadows, the gardens, the conservatory, she assembles
stalks and leaves and blossoms, affixes white bindings—the care she takes—
as if blowing upon a feather in a nest,
the words stiff with backing,
gathered from crossing streams,
divining ditches,
and here, unlabeled, unmistakable: a tall sprig of marijuana
stretches to the edge of the page.
In time, the horse balm pills like a sweater,
and the wild ginger wrinkles
more than the preserved kidney of a saint,
and the sarsaparilla becomes a spray of asterisks
among all these pin hooks and miniature water wheels—
while she labors to make forms lasting,
even clover, a little frizz like
something a baby might invent—
fragrance has evaporated,
a moth’s ghost
in the blackening turrets of the nineteenth century.
Hand pressed and hand printed.
She ends her collection
with quince, a yellow vein stained sheer.
She does not yet imagine
her future and how she won’t need
to see a moor,
how she won’t need to see a sea.
She finishes before she’s fourteen
and closes the album
and begins preserving our terrors.
LEE UPTON’s most recent book is The Day Every Day Is (Saturnalia, 2023). Read more.