Emily Dickinson, buttercups, and death - Poetry Unbound
Poetry Unbound
Discover more from Poetry Unbound
Open your world with poetry
Over 127,000 subscribers
Emily Dickinson, buttercups, and death
(plus a strange typo)
Jun 07, 2026
Dear friends,
Firstly, thank you — it is always a joy to read your responses. I read everything, and occasionally get to react or reply, but I’m traveling these weeks, so I make sure to read, but don’t get time for the hearts or the witty ripostes.
I have been thinking of Emily Dickinson this week (it is a rare enough week when I am not thinking of her). She died on May 15th, 1886, at the age of 55 (she would have been 56 later that year, in December). The cause of her death was Bright’s disease — an old term for nephritis, an inflammation of the kidneys — with which she had suffered for two and a half years. She was laid in a white coffin, with three kinds of flowers: a vanilla scented heliotrope, a lady’s slipper orchid, and a knot of blue field violets.
(As I was writing this I wrote “violents,” not “violets,” and heard Emily Dickinson laugh from the space in between time and eternity where she now resides.)
Her longtime friend and sometimes editor Colonel Higginson read a Brontë poem Emily had loved at the short funeral service, held in the family library. Then, following a request made by Emily Dickinson herself, she was not driven to the burial ground in a carriage, but rather, carried through fields of buttercups to the family plot at West Cemetery on Triangle Street.
Carried through fields of buttercups.
Seoul, November 2018. Photo by Pádraig Ó Tuama.
Her final letter — which was to her cousins Frances and Louise Norcross — was short, and written in the month of her death. “Little Cousins. Called back. Emily” is what it says. And “Called Back” is inscribed on her grave, together with her name and dates.
The poem that Higginson read at the short service? It was Emily Brontë’s “No Coward Soul Is Mine.” This beautiful poem, addressed to God (or Time, or Eternity, or Love, or That Over Which Death Has No Dominion) speaks through religious devotion, but also casts creeds aside. Here’s how it ends:
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published
Though earth and moon were gone
And suns and universes ceased to be
And Thou wert left alone
Every Existence would exist in thee
There is not room for Death
Nor atom that his might could render void
Since thou art Being and Breath
And what thou art may never be destroyed.
You can read the full poem on the Poetry Foundation website.
Ireland’s oldest woman just died. Nell Hynes — she was 109. Last December, on her birthday, she credited her long life to hard work, no smoking or drinking. But we are also in times of terrible deaths. Every day, I read of vicious deaths in Gaza, the West Bank, Ukraine, Sudan, and all the other places you wish I had put on the list. Hate-fuelled deaths: murders of women, murders of Jews, murders of trans people, murders of asylum seekers, murders of Black and Indigenous people. Deaths from diseases too — Ebola in the DRC and elsewhere — and the worries about reduced funding for research into treating and/or preventing these and other diseases. All those funerals and grieving families and friends. My god.
One of the strange things about being alive is that death is part of it. But — we hope, we hope, we hope — that everyone could have a good death, or, at least, a good enough one. Emily Dickinson’s life was cut short, but, in the scheme of terrible things, some may say it was a good enough death. I wish I lived in a world where deaths could be good enough. I do not.
Of course, after a sentence like that, the conviction deepens: do what I can to make it more like that world.
The question this week? What is a good enough death you have been around? It is never easy. It is often painful. But amidst that, the creativity of people can make commemorations meaningful, and gestures and companionship can sometimes help.
Poetry in the World
A list of my events: Online and in the U.S. (Rhinebeck, NY; Santa Fe, NM) , Ireland (Borris), Scotland (Iona), and England (Kettering)
I’ll be joined by brilliant journalist Olivia O’Leary for a reading and conversation on my new book of poems, beginning at 3:45 p.m. (For registration info, click on the date heading.)
June 27–July 3, Iona, Scotland
Krista and I will be leading a week of conversation (with some musical guests) on Iona, an island off an island off the west coast of Scotland. It is filled, but if you want to be on the wait list, you can email the Saint Columba hotel by clicking on the title just above here. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
August 9–13, Santa Fe, New Mexico
I’m leading a four-day intensive workshop at Modern Elder Academy called “Poetry as a Common Language”. We’ll read, write, and discuss poems on finding and deepening connection. (For more information, click on the date heading.)
August 27-30, Kettering, England
I’m absolutely delighted to be returning to this year’s Greenbelt Festival, a gathering of arts, activism, and belief in England, beginning. (For registration info, click on the date heading.)
I’ll be leading evening worship alongside Nadia Bolz-Weber and Doug Gay as part of the Festival of Preaching, beginning at 5:30 p.m. (For registration info, click on the date heading.)
I’ll be leading a virtual craft intensive on poetry and desire through Poets House, beginning at 6 p.m. ET. (For more info, click on the date heading.)