The Healing Journey

February 25, 2025

One of Emily Dickinson’s most brooding poems, “There’s a certain Slant of light,” talks about grief and death and transformation. All these thoughts were evoked by the light on a winter afternoon. She describes the feeling as despair, associated with loss, something she was intimately familiar with in her short life.

There’s a certain Slant of light

By Emily Dickinson

There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference –
Where the Meanings, are –

None may teach it – Any –
‘Tis the Seal Despair –
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air –

When it comes, the Landscape listens –
Shadows – hold their breath –
When it goes, ’tis like the Distance
On the look of Death.

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