Wild Nights Are Calling. Looks like Mellencamp knocked off an original.

What’s that quote from Dumb and Dumber?  “That John Denver's full of sh*t, man”?  That’s it, isn’t it?  Gosh that movie.  So hilarious.  Or maybe I just think it was hilarious because it came out when I was in the 8th grade, the target audience for the film's the level of humor.  Anyway, I mention it because the poet, John Denver is insulted as ‘full of it’ and I’d like to hold this up in contrast to a poet who nails it (no pun intended, read below) on another topic:  Emily Dickinson’s Wild Nights.

When Jon is away I really tap into this space of … how would I describe it?  Awareness?  Noticing?  Longing, for sure.  But it seems like it’s something more than that.  I tell people, and this is true, that there is a general underlying current of heightened emotion for the duration of deployment.  This makes over-reacting a pretty typical experience, also tears are more common over small things.  But longing offers me something too.  It offers me a posture uniquely positioned to notice things, perhaps feel them more acutely.

And so Emily Dickinson’s poem.  Right now, I feel these words.  I embody them.  This reclusive New Englander, dressed in white, pens three scandalous and spot-on stanzas that perfectly capture longing and desire for lovers apart.

Wild Nights

Wild nights!  Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile the winds
To a heart in port, -
Done with compass,
Done with the chart.

Rowing in Eden!
Ah!  The sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in thee!

Man, Emily, getting pretty racy, eh?  The thing is, she nailed it: Longing, imagination, a heart’s desire.  This is a new fave.

Many thanks to Sunshine Foods, the new health food grocery store in the neighborhood.  I’ve been meaning to try it out for months and today I did.  What luck: they offered my favorite chocolate bar, Chocolove on sale this week.  Chocolove bars always include love poems on the underside of their packaging.  Today Emily helped me express my longing for sweet Jon Horne.  And I got to eat good chocolate.  #WinWin! (Also, true confessions, I accidentally drooled on myself while eating the chocolate.  I am a 33 year old adult.  How is that even possible?)