From Blank to Blank —
A Threadless Way
I pushed Mechanic feet —
To stop — or perish — or advance —
Alike indifferent —
If end I gained
It ends beyond
Indefinite disclosed —
I shut my eyes — and groped as well
‘Twas lighter — to be Blind —
From Blank to Blank —
A Threadless Way
I pushed Mechanic feet —
To stop — or perish — or advance —
Alike indifferent —
If end I gained
It ends beyond
Indefinite disclosed —
I shut my eyes — and groped as well
‘Twas lighter — to be Blind —
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This poem has to be my all time favorite. Within the very first two lines, Dickinson constructs a fictional universe that chills me to my core. She starts her journey at a blank, and where might this traveler be traveling to? What hopeful destination? Well, a blank. And the path in between is not easy, not straight. It is instead a Minotaur’s labyrinth (‘a threadless way’) but now, without Ariadne’s life-saving thread. Who the Minotaur is, why the wanderer is indifferent, is left to our imagination.