Jaki Jean on My Life Had Stood a Loaded Gun, Emily Dickinson & Willie Nelson

When I gaze at this photo, taken in Cuernavaca< Mexico in 2011 by my friend & fellow writer, Cate Poe, I am reminded of an Emily Dickinson poem.

My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -

In Corners - till a Day

The Owner passed - identified -

And carried Me away -

And now We roam in Sovreign Woods -

And now We hunt the Doe -

And every time I speak for Him

The Mountains straight reply -

And do I smile, such cordial light

Opon the Valley glow -

It is as a Vesuvian face

Had let it’s pleasure through -

And when at Night - Our good Day done -

I guard My Master’s Head -

’Tis better than the Eider Duck’s

Deep Pillow - to have shared -

To foe of His - I’m deadly foe -

None stir the second time -

On whom I lay a Yellow Eye -

Or an emphatic Thumb -

Though I than He - may longer live

He longer must - than I -

For I have but the power to kill,

Without - the power to die -

The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Edited by R. W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999)
Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition ed by Ralph W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999)

Dickinson’s poem has stayed with me over the years, long after I left my role as an English major & women’s studies minor. 

I was introduced to the poem by Dr. Patricia Lee Yongue, who was my mentor at the University of Houston.  Amazing woman. 

One morning, as we were talking in her office, Dr. Yongue told me about an assignment she given her graduate seminar for their final:  write an essay about Emily Dickinson’s My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun with Willie Nelson’s rendition of Seven Spanish Angels.

I remember being incredibly jealous of the assignment.

Over the years, I have spent many moments, listening to the Willie & Ray Charles rendition of Seven Spanish Angels - my favorite version, staring at one of two copies of Emily Dickinson’s complete poems. 

(One copy I always kept on a bookshelf at whatever office I occupied.  Because a woman never knows when she might need a bit of poetry.  Or a feather boa. Always keep a boa & a book of poetry in your office.)

I am not sure I will ever progress beyond My life had stood - a Loaded Gun.

I always want to move beyond what passes across the lines between the opening & the last phrases:

For I have but the power to kill,

Without - the power to die -

One, just one gift among so many others, given to me by Dr. Yongue, was the power of Emily Dickinson.  I think that is why I turn to Dickinson when my heart & soul are weary & need to be revitalized.'

Which explains Dickinson’s presence in my offices.  The boa is another story.

As I gaze at this photo of a young woman dressed in jeans & pink tennis shoes, standing next to the statue of a powerful woman, forever captured with a loaded gun, Dickinson rings in my ears.

And do I smile, such cordial light.

And that female warrior smiles, the loaded gun, not hanging not on her side like a man, but over her vagina.  Open & defiant.

Like a loaded gun, this is me.  This is my power.  This is what you cannot take from me or replicate.  Threaten me, threaten those I love.  Aim at me & I will pull this gun & end the argument.

For I have but the power to kill,

Without - the power to die -

During these difficult times, when so many men and, unfortunately, women, want to restrict & strip women of their power, their right to choose, their right to stand firm, their right to excel,  perhaps it is a time to revisit Dickinson. 

And one day, I will write that paper never assigned to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8A9Y1Dq_cQ