I’ve been reading the book of Job this week, which is full of poetry itself. It’s a rich, troubling, fascinating, in some ways deeply satisfying book. But in the back of my mind as I’ve tried to puzzle it all out, and confronted its magnificent refusal of easy rationality, has been this Emily Dickinson poem. I read it as a cryptic surrender to mystery:

301

I reason, Earth is short –
And Anguish – absolute –
And many hurt,
But, what of that?

I reason, we could die –
The best Vitality
Cannot excel Decay;
But, what of that?

I reason, that in Heaven –
Somehow, it will be even –
Some new Equation, given –
But, what of that?

Is it flippant — “So what?” Or a tiny New England fist shaken at God? Or a refusal of pedantic debate about matters that can’t be explained? Or an affirmation of the value of our timebound, rational life, nestled in the eye of a whirlwind of mystery?

The Poetry Friday roundup is hosted at Just Another Day of Catholic Pondering today.