The Visit to Amherst Never Made

Her house in Amherst had been a goal of mine for years. But time somehow always got in the way. It’s inexcusable, really, since she’s only two hours away. I’m told the house has been carefully preserved, in and out, just as she left it. Of course, she won’t be there, so she won’t be rushing out the front door to welcome me and interrupting her domestic chores or waving at me from an upper bedroom window, my heart beating with excitement, nor do I expect to catch a glimpse of her moving through the many rooms in her white dress like a ghost, or in the backyard cutting fresh flowers. The most I could hope to see of her are the few surrogates she left behind – the small writing desk, (table, really), inkwell and pens, her bed, books her brother smuggled into the house against her father’s disapproval. Ever since the day she surmised the black carriage and the horses’ heads, ever since that day she has been resting in a plot of ground nearby. And though unable to receive guests which she always welcomed, still she doesn’t mind the many visitors that come every year to tour the house and hear a reading of her poems in a voice sadly not hers. What she misses most, I suspect, is what she excelled at, writing letters and poems alone in her upstairs room, candlelight falling softly on her plain oval face and rich auburn hair, her small fingers deftly holding a pen drinking heavily from an inkwell – I can hear her breathing, can’t you? – also her pen scratching on paper, rushing to catch up with her thougths, each liquid word seeping into the paper, precise and exact in weight and import, like an ingredient in a favorite recipe. That’s how I often picture the remarkable lady of Amherst. And now that she’s dead, where else but in her poems can I enjoy her as if in the flesh?