Emily Dickinson - Parting

This is one of my favourite poems by Emily Dickinson, the reclusive poet from Amhurst.

PARTING.

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

I love her cadences here, the steely way in which she faces eternity head on. Anyone who has experienced the loss of a loved one can appreciate the power of her words, particularly the last two lines. We are not told what the two previous climatic events in her life were but it is not necessary for us to know in order to be gripped by her words.