418 "Because I could not stop for Death" by Emily Dickinson

The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglomerate Network and Lit Hub Radio. Hello. She was virtually unknown in her lifetime, writing poetry mostly for herself. Four years after her death, the wider publication and the astonished re-appraisals began. Her name was Emily Dickinson, and we look at one of her most famous poems today on the History of Literature. Okay, here we go, welcome to the podcast I'm Jack Wilson, I'm glad you're here, etc. I almost called this episode. This episode is not about Christina Rosetti because of what I found myself unable to do. This week I put together these, this is my problem isn't it? I put together these two part, three part, four part episodes and then I just become stymied by, I don't know, some kind of intense boredom or self-loathing, or I don't know what it is, existential crisis. It's frankly so bizarre and it's probably why we don't have Jack Wilson NPR Hero or Jack Wilson King of the BBC, right? I'm not a broadcaster, I can't work on command or demand, podcasting, podcasting, I have no master, I have no boss, I have no bottom line and no bottom either. It seems there's no bottom to how low you can fall, you can't really draw a line down there, can you? You just have a smear on your page, maybe darkness, be getting more darkness, an infinite smudge. Well, that's me in a nutshell, harmless drudge plummeting toward the infinite smudge. Put that on my tombstone. That's what Emily Dickinson put on her tombstone. She wrote her own epitaph, called back, says Emily Dickinson born December 10, 1830, called back May 15, 1886, called back, called back to, to heaven, one suppose is 55 years after the departure from heaven, dear Emily was called back, someone did the calling. Was it angels, friends up there in heaven, or was it God himself saying you've had your stint down there, I'd like you back up here with me, I need you. Does God say that when he calls us back? You're called back because you're needed here, or does he just say it's time? My guess is, it's the latter, and this might seem fanciful to you, these hypotheticals, but we're operating on hunches and impulses and ideas and guesses because death is our topic today. Emily Dickinson's view of it as expressed in one of her most famous poems because I could not stop for death. What a fantastic opening line, by the way. What does stopping for death even mean? Eight syllables in that line, it's I am big to trameter, but come on people using words like that. I am big to trameter that puts it in some pointy headed academic language, which is useful for translators and professors and students, but let's not be any of those things at the moment. Let's be human beings, merely humans, poetry fans, maybe, but let's not even go that far. Let's just be human being, lowly humans naked and starving, terrified, or maybe a little more gussied up to that, put your clothes back and eat a little something and come back, but still be terrified because by God, why wouldn't you be a look at the world around you? Terror is appropriate, you're going to die. By the way, FYI, spoiler alert, that's the spoiler alert of all spoiler alerts, isn't it? Humans alone are invested with that knowledge called back, isn't it pretty to think so? So let's not waste our time, we terrified humans, sitting in our workman's clothes or maybe a simple homemade dress or maybe pajamas, I have on a jacket and tie, but that's only because I want to look good for you people who never see me. I'm just as terrified as you are in your workout clothes or your leather coat or your long overcoat, your top hat, if you're wearing one, maybe you're in your beach clothes summertime swimsuit with a towel over your shoulders. Maybe the towel is over your shoulders because the sun is going down and it's time to move inside. The sun is always setting, right? It's always setting as soon as you can see it, it's setting, that process has already begun, it fools you because it's ascending in the sky, but it's going in one direction and that is to set. It's why we are so tied to the sun, we do the exact same thing. Soon, sorry, babies, as soon as you're bored, you're dying every single day, you're moving toward that. Now eat and grow and learn things and be good to one another before I call you back. Okay, so sorry for those of you waiting for Christina Rossetti, I can't stop thinking about this poem. And frankly, Christina Rossetti was starting to feel like homework to me, although I do have goblin market in my sights and her life too, she was pretty amazing, although in terms of being amazing, nobody tops the queen, Emily Dickinson, my goodness, what a mind. Okay, so we're on the first line, ignore, I am back to trameter, just think of the way the words sound, to dumb, to dumb, to dumb, to dumb, to dumb, because I could not stop for death. That because tells us not to stop, not to plan for an ending, because as the start of the clause and there will be more, but this line just has four of these little drum beats, to dumb, to dumb, to dumb, to dumb. What does that rhythm remind you of? What do you feel to dumb, to dumb, to dumb, to dumb, to dumb, to dumb, to drum, maybe, meaning out time, but what else? Come on, you're ahead of me already, it's a heartbeat, a heart beating, because we're not called back yet, nor is the speaker, not at rest, still alive, still doing things, unable to stop for death, because who has time to stop for that? Who has time to stop for death, capital D, when we are so busy living with that beating heart? I talk to a man the other day who's 90, he was saying how miraculous it is that he's still alive. He smoked three packs of cigarettes a day for 52 years, and the doctors told him that he has large lungs, which somehow saved him, that in some kind of lottery like luck. 52 times 365 times 60 cigarettes is well over a million cigarettes that he inhaled, imagine including that kind of drag on your system. How many minutes does one waste just fumbling for the packet and finding a national train and swiping matches, turning them from sticks into fire, but there's a contemplation too with that smoking, maybe not if you're a chain smoker like that, then you're just living with a cigarette sticking out the corner of your mouth. But let's say you smoke a few less than that, or maybe once in a while, there was a contemplation, for him in the middle of his daily 60, a moment of inhalation, a pause in life. And he said, well, looking back, my life probably should have been a lot shorter, but who knows what kind of life I would have had the cigarettes helped me think. And I said, what did you think about when you were smoking? What did you help you think? And he said, well, I was thinking about death. That man's heart is still beating somewhere within those buried inside those large pillowy lungs, apparently, which are probably still black, by the way. Anyway, there's a beating heart in there. It's fainter now, a 90 year old heart, maybe not quite as strong. Colors are brilliant as he slides below the horizon. His mind is still alert and active, just like the sky lighting up as the sun fades. He is in the process of being called back somewhere. There's a giant phone being lifted and a giant finger starting to tap the buttons, because I could not stop for death, oh, Emily, what was it like in your world in your mind? The next line is, he kindly stopped for me. Again, it's the beating there, right? Duh-duh-duh-dum-duh-dum. He kindly stopped for me. This time only three beats, not four, giving us a sense of a pause, right? And you go four, and then three, you get a little bit coming to rest. Already we have, oh, go we have in just two lines, seven simple little feet using foot in the line in the sense of meter. We have a feeling that the speaker here has some agency. The speaker has chosen whether to stop, maybe, or maybe we just can't. What does that mean? I could not stop for death, why? Because you're not able, or because you did not want to. How much agency did the speaker have? In either case, though, we say, not you, not this time, not now, death, leave us alone. Leave us alone. I am not stopping for you. And then the second line, death response, nope, nope, nope, death will stop for you. You're not stopping? It don't matter. That's how I imagine death talking, by the way. My version of death in my mental picture is kind of like the guys I went to high school with. You're not, that you're not going to stop. It don't matter. What is your ignorant? With the bottom lip, puffy with chew, white ring from the tobacco can, permanently engraved into the back of the, the back pocket of the blue jeans, carrying death in the bottom lip all the time from age, I don't know, 13 onward, that when they started, a couple of them have died. Unfortunately, taken by cancer, those are the boys I think of, and now the men who embody death to me. I mean smile, playing about their eyes. I don't think that was Emily's death, by the way, look at her line. Does that tell us anything about death? Not to my ear, about death with a capital D, death the person, not to my ear. To me, it's more about the speaker. Imagine hustling past a taxi cab that's going to take us somewhere. Actually, I have something like this for my own life that I can share. I snuck into Tibet way back when, and there was a town known for being run by a, a fiendish Chinese man, military man who actually loved meeting Westerners. He was stuck way out there in an outpost, an outpost to him when you're from China, wasn't an outpost for the people who lived there, who were from there, of course. All this is relative. This man was famous for taking travelers, backpackers and other visitors, taking them to dinner and so on, being very kind, smiling. So the plan was, the plan was to avoid this guy because then he would hit you with fines or he would, he would take your stuff or he would make you delay or he would not allow you to go where you wanted to go, and so the plan was for those who were in the know about this guy getting ready for him, is that when you were hiding out on the bus through the trucker or however you were trying to sneak into this town, you would, as to be let out early, before arriving within the town's limits, and then you would just walk along the road into town, and your lodgings without ever going to the bus stop where everyone was let out, the main drag, and that way you would hope that this fiendish man would never find you. So it was very early in the morning, I tell my fellow travelers my plan, I asked to be let out, I get let out about a half a mile or so, buy myself in the dark, and I start walking along this road into town, and I go about, about 10 steps, seems like 10 steps, maybe it was more like two minutes, and immediately there appears a man on a bicycle, because I wasn't the first guy to try this, I mean it was in the lonely planet book, here's something to try, there was probably some schmuck who did it every day, and so they sent out a man to follow me, he was saying hello, hello, hello, and I was trying to pretend he didn't exist, hoping that maybe it was just some random kid, something someone who would get bored eventually, but of course he worked for this guy, this man, I don't want to mention his name even though he's probably long gone, but this guy worked for that guy, and this guy escorted me straight to the fiend I was trying to avoid, and once I got there, I had to sit with all the travelers who had been rounded up at the bus stop, people I was trying to outsmart my getting out early, they were all there too, and they kind of chuckled to see me being brought in, the smarty pants with the lonely planet book who was trying to cheat the system did not work, because I could not stop for the fiend, he kind of at least stopped for me, imagine you hustle past a taxi that holds people inside and they are your kidnappers, the driver plans to kidnap you, and you say sorry, nope, I don't need to do this, goodbye, I'm not stopping here, like my three year old going to the dentist for the first time, they called his name and he sprinted out the door on the sidewalk, you've been waiting in the waiting room with me for like an hour, all ready to go to the dentist, yeah, I'm ready, I'm ready to add no problem, we got this, they called his name, he jumped up from his chair and said actually I don't need to do this, and he ran out the door, it started running down the sidewalk, headed toward, I don't know, central park, freedom, I chased him down and scooped him up and carried him back inside and put him in the chair, yes, you do, sorry, death, no time, stop won't stop and death kindly pulls up and swerves into your path and says, get in. For Emily, it's not a dad, grabbing a kid on the sidewalk or a bicycle on the outskirts of a Tibetan town or a taxi with a kidneper inside, it's a carriage with death in it and something else too, something or someone, quite surprising, which we will see after we return from this short break. Alright, back to the palm, we're still in the first stands up because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me, bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum, four heartbeats, three heartbeats, four, eight, you count heartbeats that way, four pairs, three pairs, now we get four more and then three more after that. The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality. Hmm, that is interesting, intensely interesting, there's so much going on in this palm, in these twenty words, twenty words is all we have so far, and yet we have a speaker who was too busy for death, either too busy or unable to stop, death had stopped for the speaker, however there's a little bit of irony or self mocking humor, a little bit, oh he kindly stopped for me, isn't that nice of death, to make sure that we're all included, not just those who want him and who are ready for him and who stop for him, he's got a big tent, this guy, death, how generous of him to include us, we're the only ones in this carriage, because of course the speaker got in, she has no choice, there are no polite refusals, what's the point, and the carriage has no one else except immortality, immortality, that's here too, mortality and immortality, two sides of the same coin, death is kind of that coin, with mortality comes immortality, because immortality is the opposite of mortality and vice versa, and here we think well what's after life, eternity, life on earth might not be eternal, but heaven is, the afterlife is, whatever the afterlife is, it's eternal, and death has that power, it flips that switch, as long as death stays away, we have immortality, when death arrives we aren't immortal, that's a dream for us, lowly humans, except it's also ours in a sense, it's what we get whether we want it or not, being here means that you will not be here too, forever and ever, that's how time works, even if you think our existence ends at death, that snuffs you out, the end of your existence, the fact of it, the fact of you're not being here will continue forever, that's the immortal part, twenty words, fourteen heartbeats, what can you do in fourteen heartbeats people, Emily Dickinson has created a scene and defined the nature of the cosmos with grace and good humor in fourteen heartbeats I'm lucky if I can complete a sneeze, so I'm tempted to take another break now just a marvel at what an amazing first stanza that is a speaker who can't stop, won't stop, death's swerving over a ha can and will and kindly death, the whole attitude of this palm, the whole mood, yes dear reader this is grim but we don't have to be all mopey about it this is a poem not a funeral this is your life not your death or it's your death not your life take your pick whichever one is glass half full to you unless you're a glass half empty person to your core in which case I will say the glass is full of poison so you will be optimistic here your glass half empty I'm gonna fill your glass with poison I'm making the rules or rather Emily is making them and I'm enforcing them a carriage with a stunningly smart companion immortality a perfect rhythm to match the beating of the heart all this in twenty meager words twenty humble little words and suddenly I'm as invested in this journey as I am in a a Tolstoy in a fair or or the fate of one of Dickens's young strivers aren't you don't you want to know what's going to happen to this speaker who climbed into this carriage with death and found that immortality was in there too will death make some demands will there be some tears some some reconciliation some some fear or terror will death bargain reveal secrets will our speaker die at the end of this we're inside the heartbeat of the universe this is the place where secrets live let's see if we are given any of them and let's yes let's take a break because I need to catch my breath sorry dear listeners I know we just took one but this one that one was for you and this one is for me we'll be back in a moment okay good news people good news the good thing about taking that second break early like that is that it is now just you and me and this poem just you and me in this carriage and we can start our journey together without fear of interruption until we finish we will go the rest of the way together as far as it takes not a long poem don't you feel that way when you get in the car in the door closes or you arrive at the airport or maybe when you make it through security at the airport okay good exhale exhale the last stop was it's behind us the next one is not yet here we are just in process nothing to do but this journey until we arrive nowhere to be but here that's how I feel like it is in this carriage with the speaker and death and immortality there is nowhere to be but here so what happens next stanza we slowly drove he knew no haste and I had put away my labor and my leisure to for his civility okay death is patient of course he is I'm patient to when I know my argument is unassailable if I tell a small child it's bedtime and they say I'm never going to bed again I'm gonna stay up forever and I I can be patient at that point yes you could say that all you want I know you will be asleep probably pretty soon if you see a child wandering from the path but you know it's only a matter of time before they'll get stuck where they are where they're headed and realize they need to return to the path then you can just smile and let them have a little wander what did our speaker do as the carriage slowly takes off she puts away labor and leisure as you do when you're on the train or on the plane your Wi-Fi's off the phone as an airplane mode maybe you could read a little maybe you just sit and think and gaze out the window you're certainly not doing what you would ordinarily do whether that's being a president or a pole valter tube I don't know why I chose those two common professions not so much a doctor or a lawyer how about that a worker or someone who hunts or fishes or golf or hikes or or bakes or volunteers at the food bank put away your concerns and your routine duties and hobbies death and is is kindly offered to take you for this ride have earned something else poetically we're still doing eight and six eight and six with dashes to help keep the rhythm on track Emily Emily Dickens' dashes are like train tracks literally they steer the wheels or maybe they're more like guard rails that they put up on curves near highways where the rains on horses that can pull a little bit tug in one direction or another if you're a poet and you ask which punctuation should I use here a period a colon a semi colon a comma or nothing at all if that's your question and the proper answer is yes then you insert the dash and you cross yourself and you glance up to the heavens and you say a little prayer of gratitude to saint Emily the dash the Dickinson dash okay next stanza we passed the school where children strove at recess in the ring we passed the fields of gazing rain we passed the setting sun this is our third stanza of eight six eight six the whole poem is seven stanzas by the way we're about halfway almost what do we get in here in these four little lines as we gaze out the window of our carriage accompanied by death our driver or maybe our host and that shadow we figure immortality who's here to a fellow passenger what do we see gazing out this window a school a school yard full of children playing at recess not learning having fun expressing joy exuding humanity with their young energy a little contained they are in a school they are in a ring recess is sharply demarcated by time as any kid who remembers the 15 minute interval if that's what you had you didn't get to just play until the game was over or until you were tired you played until that whistle blue and then you went sprinting towards the school to line up or else those recessed ladies were not to be trifled with at my school my oh I think I told you about these people these women my aid had teenage boys who had been in Vietnam very recently and by god if the rule was two kids on a tire swing and not three do you think Mrs. Klussmeyer was going to allow that third kid to sneak on just for fun just for kicks just because do you think those rules were there to be flouted not with Mrs. Klussmeyer on the watch or Mrs. Pan whose son's head feet with jungle rot from being in wet boots over there in Vietnam do you think you think Mrs. Klussmeyer and Mrs. Pan were going to let a a kid who only had tennis shoes play in the snow against the rules get on the concrete young man and when this whistle blows you get into line post-haste but within this rigid structure within these rules within these limits the world is yours please do have fun kiddies that's important too it's what they pay me for to provide the discipline and the structure so that you can experience joy for 15 minutes what else does Emily pass in that carriage of hers fields of gazing grain gazing so beautiful not grazing not gain grain for grazing not to be eaten right out here that's somewhere off in the future for now it's just growing and looking looking and being seen an ocean of grain to be seen and perhaps do a little seeing itself looking at the sky and the world around us and of course the sun which now is setting children laborers that's what all that grain is right production food labor waiting to happen and a setting sun that's that stands a children adults retired people the three stages of life play work slumbering unto death retirement rest 14 heartbeat people this is a poetic genius operating at an extremely high level our next stanza is the first one the only one actually in this whole poem of seven stanzas the only one that doesn't follow the eight six eight six pattern naturally it comes in the middle or nearly so just after the middle and this one has so in other words we have three that follow the pattern one that's slightly different and then two that follow the pattern again the middle one the one we're in right now stands a four is where we make a turn a pivot this one instead of eight six eight six six eight six remember the last line was we passed the setting sun the stanza is or rather he passed us the dues drew quivering and chill for only gossamer my gown my tippet only tool okay so where are we we've moved from day to night morning recess to a night gown tool is like gossamer imagine a very thin sort of garment which is perfect this is a summer night right we saw the fields of grain we know it's summer the dues are quivering there's a chill and the speaker's gown is gossamer and the tippet which is like a shawl or a cape is made of tool which is silky and thin we say or rather he passed us what does that mean that's how this stands begins talking about the setting sun we passed the setting sun or rather he passed us once again it's this Einsteinian theory of relativity right position is in the eye of the beholder or the perspective of the speaker your position in the cosmos can be either fixed or moving and so can everything else as things wheel around you can either imagine that it's moving or you are the truth is you both are but imagine that you're fixed and everything's moving or everything else is fixed and you're moving or something else is fixed in your movie we think of the sun as setting but it's not really moving like that right it's not moving through our sky our ground is moving our planet is spinning in this case what Emily is saying is in reverse we passed the setting sun but no the sun isn't something you pass it disappears from your view the sun is what moves across the sky because time moves whether you imagine it's moving or not it moves when you're standing still the only thing you can do to make it slow down is to you can't make anything nothing you can do will make it slow down but you can you can make it seem like it's slowing down you could do something intensely boring but even then it's not going to go backwards that's the trick right you want a job that flies by so you look at your watch and say oh man it seems like I just got here now it's time to go already or do you want one so crushingly dull that you look at your watch and say wait I feel like I've been doing this for an hour and it's only been two minutes does that cheat death to be so bored to hate life to or should I say to love life so much that you're willing to hate it in order to prolong it does that squeeze out more from life to slow down time with boredom and tedium I've pondered this and it reached no good conclusion meanwhile the sun passes me I like this speaker in her gown and shawl made of these thing gauzy fabrics I'm starting to feel like she might be sort of a ghost maybe a corpse if you're macabre but anyway someone who's not bundled up against the night air not sweating under heavy garments not someone who's sticky from wearing a heavy cloth shirt all day in the sun but someone who is almost herself like the wind in this carriage of hers next two stanzas return us to the steady heartbeat our stanza of arrhythmia heart murmuring is over we've made the turn the sun is setting and the poem is setting too next stanza we paused before a house that seemed a swelling of the ground the roof was scarcely visible the corners in the ground this house this house it's not a house I want to see a house I want a I want a little house with a light and warmth a house that's a swelling of the ground you can be optimistic here and think well maybe it's a dome home it's mostly buried or maybe it's got some kind of cool cave or maybe it's a fantastic bunker maybe you go inside and it does light up and it's like a whole shopping mall built into the earth a cool underground city but let's throw some realism on this fantasy I know it's what you wanted to think I appreciate the optimism but you know what this is as well as I do it's a tomb it's a grave a swelling of the ground with the roof scarcely visible a corner in the ground it's the house will all have most likely it's about six inches longer than we are but we don't need it to be long because we ain't moving time will move we won't our bodies won't anyway you hear that ain't that snuck in there it's my high school friend with the mean smile he's back if I shot it with a gun and stepped on his head it was my high school brutal poets every one of them great philosophizers of the school of heart knocks in realism spitting tobacco juice in a hearty's cup our second to last stanza the penultimate stanza in this poem was the grave described as a house the grave what does any of this mean we have one stanza to go since then to centuries and yet feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horse's heads were toward eternity oh my god let's just talk about the last let's just look at the last lines of the six stanzas for a moment for the seven look at the words that pop out of those lines we get four lines per stanza right I know you can't see this maybe you've looked up the poem that's not a bad idea it's easy to find all fits right in fits right on the screen of your phone or your window of your browser words like death and stop and feels and ground and roof and day plain words Anglo sex and words rough short peasant words earthy words the finer words the Latinate words come in the last lines of some of these stanzas immortality civility eternity words to be etched in marble marble of a tomb perhaps marble of a poem words with concepts that reach beyond what a farmer might see in a field as he squints against the sun these are things you contemplate when you are at rest three and a half lines of earthiness and then a ringing reach towards civilization and sophistication and something that we humans know and appreciate like symphonies or great novels or astronomy something elevated something out of higher plane something abstract something in rarified air philosophy because for all of this bodily weight that we have the failures of our animal being the stumbling of being human we have these gorgeous minds too it's why we are the closest to God sorry dolphins you're in second place you stupid losers I'm just kidding no offense to dolphins I got a little carried away there the earth and everything in it fish and foul plants and pianos it's all just stuff and we are stuff too but we also have this ability to think and reason and imagine and appreciate something that goes way beyond hunger and cold and procreation and fear what do we learn about our speaker our 19th century genius who has allowed us to see inside her carriage and inside her mind we see that she's not from the 19th century actually she has died centuries before that's what she tells us breath taking in this last dawns of the centuries have flown by that's one hint in that great dilemma set forth before do you want time to crawl or do you want it to fly by which would be better we learn that in the afterlife anyway it flies by centuries feel shorter than a day and not just any day which day it's not a day it's the day because Emily's not done with us we hear that there was a very particular day centuries ago when the speaker surmised that the horse's heads were toward eternity can't stop won't stop for death death stops you get in the carriage you look around nobody here but me death and immortality you gaze out the window and you travel that's the moment of death plus the afterlife and at some moment you big brained person you've kept your beautiful mind by the way on this journey your ability to see and notice and appreciate and formulate things into words you've kept your affinity for the heartbeat it's marking time for you it shapes your thoughts at some moment you notice you surmise that the horses heads are toward eternity that's where those gorgeous creatures are going clip clop clip clop they're taking you there they won't be stopping for food or drink they're mythic they're the best transportation imaginable in this context an electric car wouldn't be this good or a spaceship or a magic carpet i don't know all those things would be good they would put us in a different century probably but this one is a carriage of beautiful 19th century carriage with these horses and their own animal minds their heads giving them just enough purpose enough they know where they're going to be wonderful in the context of this poem they'll take us to death we'll swing by all of life from cradle to grave morning to night recess to rest and everything in between including all labor and all leisure and this is how death works because this is how time works because this is how the universe works the constant movement forward and the constant ending all of us ending ending from the moment we begin and what we get is the beauty along the way sometimes the beauty of children laughing in beautiful fields of grain stirring gently in the wind and sometimes the more complicated beauty of feeling a chill in the summer's night or walking past a graveyard and thinking about the nature of life or the sudden shock and the resigned aftermath of seeing that the horses are on their way they're pointed in one direction and their purposes to take us there we might not want to get in the carriage and go but we will go all of us and time will fly will still be beautiful and ugly too but mostly beautiful because our ugliness has its own savage beauty and our beauty is not ugly so we tend toward beauty just as life tends toward death but mortality tends toward the immortal and the carriage doesn't ride towards oblivion it sails toward eternity and how do you end a majestic poem like this one do you end quietly with a period or do you emphasize its greatness and the greatness of its epiphany with an exclamation mark or do you perhaps give it a half twist with a question mark the answer of course is yes because you like Emily Dickinson are a gorgeous god damn genius and when you're writing a poem about eternity you end your poem with a dash okay that's gonna do it for this episode of the history of literature i got a little carried away there my apologies my thanks to Emily Dickinson for stepping in today when Christina Rosetti was indisposed or at least i wanted nothing to do with her believe me i tried my thanks to Christina Rosetti for being patient my thanks to the dolphins those lovable losers hey dolphins the silver medal is nothing to sneeze at i put you ahead of great apes and macaque monkeys after all somewhere there is a sad chimpanzee with a tear running down his little face wearing a bronze medal around his neck i can't please everyone people it's the nature of the beast the beast being me the judge who awarded himself the gold ha ha sorry to all you other beasts i'm going with humans this time around until we get so big headed we trash the place then that'll knock us down a few pegs if only we had a few more Emily Dickinson's in our world and a few less everyone else's we would be in good shape look at how lopsided it's been there have been about 117 billion people who have ever walked the earth and there has been one Emily Dickinson it hardly seems fair no wonder we're so lousy we like at one 117 billion others it's as if lightning only struck one time and we're still sitting here cold and without fire just talking about how great it was when we had that that hot tree suddenly got hot remember that it was a bright light and some noise and then there was that hot tree it was burning in that weird way and we were able to cook our food for once wasn't our cruel good that night hot oatmeal so warm and toasty with a little cinnamon and those dried grapes we call raisins tasting so good in that warm gooeyness but then the hot tree stopped burning and disappeared in a whisper of smoke and left us staring at the sky gazing at some gazing stars feeling how cold the universe really is come back Emily shoot some light out of the heavens again and maybe maybe as we're gazing the gazing stars gazing back at us we're gazing at that maybe a shooting star goes racing through the sky and that's Emily on the move because she's not a mere lightning bolt anymore she's galactic now moving through the night is powerful as a star loving her life living being her best self thinking that jack and his friends will probably be just fine they'll figure out how to rub sticks together soon enough and if not well cold oatmeal isn't the worst thing just wait and eat it at noon the sun has said but it's going to come up when it's here in the it's in the process of disappearing just like every baby is already on the road to dime but when it's not here it's not disappearing anymore it's in the process of renewal just like when our theme song ends it's not headed toward the ending not anymore that's over and when i'm not here talking anymore i'm just getting ready to talk again maybe Christina Rosetti this time god bless her maybe someone else who knows apparently it's not up to me to play in these things necessarily and of course i'm never really gone because i'm trapped in those damn archives my prison 400 times and counting where i voluntarily locked myself in one of those cells what am i thinking all for you dear listeners if you even care i'm not sure maybe you hate listen or ignore a lot of people do listen but there aren't 117 billion people who have but i will try to be positive and say the five million who have listened are nevertheless a worthy start somewhere in all this doom and gloom is some happiness and somewhere in all the oblivion is a bit of eternity too and one last piece of good news that kindly stopping by death we thought it was a little gentle joke from Emily from our speaker at the beginning well it's different now that we've heard the end isn't it if it's from a speaker who's been dead from for centuries if it's someone who's alive who's afraid of death that kindly is ironic a joke lighthearted oh you think you'll escape you think you're not going to stop for me well think again think you're too busy to stop for death aha death will find the time even if you won't but if the speaker is someone who's been traveling through the centuries like a star shooting through the sky it's different isn't it i was too busy to properly consider death were even to let myself die but death was kinder death kindly stopped for me released me death let me be who or what i'm ultimately meant to be okay is that good news or bad i got shivers but they're the good kind of shivers i'm Jack Wilson thank you for listening and we'll see you next time [Music] [Music]