A Connection

It's been awhile, but finally one of the "daily poems" stands out.  By attaching it to a poem by Dickenson, Espaillat seems to enhance the universal truth expressed.  This theme, feeling, emotion touches all - defies the ages.

“Find Work”

By Rhina P. Espaillat b. 1932

I tie my Hat—I crease my Shawl—

Life's little duties do—precisely

As the very least

Were infinite—to me—

—Emily Dickinson, #443 

My mother’s mother, widowed very young
of her first love, and of that love’s first fruit,
moved through her father’s farm, her country tongue
and country heart anaesthetized and mute
with labor. So her kind was taught to do—
“Find work,” she would reply to every grief—
and her one dictum, whether false or true,
tolled heavy with her passionate belief.
Widowed again, with children, in her prime,
she spoke so little it was hard to bear
so much composure, such a truce with time
spent in the lifelong practice of despair.
But I recall her floors, scrubbed white as bone,
her dishes, and how painfully they shone.

Source: Poetry (February 1999).
My source