“Tell it slant,”
the poet wrote.
My camera heard
the cryptic quote
and ever since
has suffered no guilt
to record the world
in vertigo’d tilt.
But perhaps this is poet’s
wisdom elemental:
truth is best known
in bits incremental.
And maybe the camera
senses a duty
to say same applies
to earth’s transient beauty.
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
with explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
— Emily Dickinson
My belated tribute to Poetry Month and Earth Day.
Also my argument that it’s not my fault when my photos are cattywampus; it’s my camera in cahoots with Emily Dickinson.
And, yes, dear reader, I sense the irony: Truth is stuck in this country’s throat right now. Is Emily’s notion of slowly revealed Truth the same as truth pried out like an abscessed tooth? (I guess I can’t help rhyming.)