Ririro.com - Poetry

"The Bee Is Not Afraid of Me" is a short poem in which a speaker walks through a summer wood and is welcomed by everything in it. The bee, the butterfly and the "pretty people" of the woods greet her warmly, while brooks laugh louder and breezes play more wildly at her arrival. Yet the closing lines turn toward a sudden, unexplained welling of tears. Joy and ache meet in just eight lines of nature...

A Service of Song is a short poem by Emily Dickinson in which a speaker skips the church pew and keeps the Sabbath at home. A bobolink leads the choir, an orchard arches overhead as a dome, and a little sexton sings in place of a tolling bell. God himself becomes the preacher, and his sermon is mercifully brief. With gentle humor and quiet defiance, the speaker finds heaven not at the end of a jou...

"Why?" is a short poem in which a speaker tries to explain the inexplicable pull of nature. A humming bee, a red glow on the hillside and the first light of morning each overwhelm the speaker's will. When strangers ask for reasons, the answers turn from near-silence to a warning, then to a challenge. Dickinson compresses awe, defiance and mystery into three tight stanzas, each ending with a quiet...

Renunciation is a short Emily Dickinson poem about a single summer day that arrives like a revelation. Two people share a silence so complete that words feel unnecessary, even profane. The sun rises and the flowers bloom as if nothing has changed, while the hours slip away and two faces look back from ships bound for opposite shores. Religious imagery gives this farewell the weight of a sacrament....

"The Brain Within Its Groove" is a short poem by Emily Dickinson that pictures the mind running smoothly along a familiar track. Then a single splinter swerves it off course. Dickinson sets that small disruption beside a flood that carves new channels through the hills and wipes out the mills below. The mood is tense and quietly unsettling, and the stakes feel enormous. In only eight lines, you ca...

"Unreturning" is a short Emily Dickinson poem about a little boat that toddles out across the bay, drawn away by a gallant, beckoning sea. In just eight lines, a small vessel meets a greedy wave, and the speaker is left to reckon with what the water has taken. Playful rhythm and tender mourning sit side by side, and the sea turns from inviting to hungry before the final lines settle in. Become a s...

In "I had no time to hate, because," Emily Dickinson weighs love against enmity in just eight lines. The speaker looks at life's brevity and the grave waiting at the end, and decides that hatred is a task there is no time to finish. Love is not an obvious alternative, yet it becomes a quiet, modest labor. The mood is wry, restrained and reflective, with a surprising turn in the second stanza. Beco...

"A Book" is a short poem by Emily Dickinson that follows a reader who devours words as if they were food and drink. Poor and bound to a frail body, he finds his spirit growing strong. Dingy days turn into a dance, and a simple book becomes a gift of wings. In just a few lines, the poem captures the giddy rush of escape that reading brings, and the freedom of a spirit let loose. Become a supporter...

The Secret, a short poem by Emily Dickinson, sets three quiet stanzas side by side: things that fly, things that stay, and things that rise while resting. Birds, hours, and the bumble-bee pass without mourning, while grief, hills, and eternity stay put. The speaker's voice turns from certainty to wonder, ending on a question about the skies. A brief, hushed riddle that rewards a slow second readin...

"Sleep is supposed to be" is a short poem that questions what we think we know about sleep and morning. Emily Dickinson begins with the everyday idea of sleep as the shutting of the eye, then turns it into a grand station lined with silent witnesses. Dawn follows, but not the ordinary kind: the real morning lies east of eternity, arriving with banners and red array. The poem is compact, strange an...

"If I shouldn't be alive" is a short poem in which a speaker imagines their own death and leaves one tender request: when the robins return, give the one in the red cravat a memorial crumb. Two compact stanzas balance gentle humor with quiet mortality. The speaker pictures thanking a friend through a "granite lip," and that image makes gratitude feel stubborn and lasting. Can silence still say tha...

Emancipation is a short poem by Emily Dickinson that asks whether a person can truly be imprisoned. In four compact stanzas, a bold voice insists that no rack, saw or scimitar can touch the soul, because a second, braver self lives behind the body. The mood is defiant yet calm, and an eagle leaving its nest becomes a striking image of escape. The closing lines turn the idea inward, suggesting the...

"To know just how he suffered" is a short poem by Emily Dickinson that circles one aching question: what was it like to die? The speaker imagines a stranger's last hour and asks whether he was patient or afraid, whether the sunshine faced his way, and which name he spoke last. Each question is quiet and unanswerable, and each deepens the mood of tender longing. The poem builds toward a final image...

"From the Chrysalis" is a short poem that places you inside a tightening cocoon, where a restless speaker feels for air and senses a dim capacity for wings. Colors tease through the walls, and the dress she wears begins to chafe. Across three compact stanzas, longing for flight collides with the clumsy work of deciphering hints and signs. Will blundering lead to the divine clue? The poem rewards s...

"Safe in their alabaster chambers" is a short poem that looks into a tomb where the faithful sleep, shut away from morning and noon. Above them, the breeze plays, the bee hums and the birds sing, but none of it reaches the sleepers. Centuries pass, empires fall, doges surrender and stars wheel overhead, all soundless as snowflakes. The poem sets quiet stone against restless time, and its closing l...

In "Perhaps you'd like to buy a flower," Emily Dickinson turns a simple shop counter into a spring riddle. A speaker offers blooms that can never be sold, only lent, and only until the daffodil unties her yellow bonnet and the bees come for their clover "hock and sherry." The tone is teasing and tender, full of playful imagery and a sly sense of fleeting time. In just a few lines, the poem makes b...

"Apocalypse" is a short poem by Emily Dickinson in which a speaker declares herself a wife and looks back at the girl she used to be. Her tone is clipped and defiant, and she calls herself both Czar and woman. She finds comfort in her new state and pain in the old, yet she refuses to compare them. Her last words are an abrupt command: stop there. Beneath the certainty runs a quiet question about w...

In "Resurrection," a short poem by Emily Dickinson, two lovers meet again after a long parting, standing before the judgment-seat of God. Stripped of flesh yet radiant, they find heaven in a single shared gaze. Dickinson turns the Last Judgment into a wedding scene, where paradise is the host and angels are familiar guests. Its mood is hushed and awestruck, asking whether any earthly bridal could...

In Love's Baptism, a poem by Emily Dickinson, a young woman declares that the name given to her at a country church font no longer belongs to her. She sets it beside her dolls and spools of thread, then steps into a second, conscious baptism of her own choosing. Part farewell to childhood, part coronation, the verse moves from a "half unconscious queen" in her father's arms to a woman with the wil...

In Vain by Emily Dickinson is a short poem of impossible love, where a speaker insists she cannot live, die or rise to heaven beside the one she adores. Each stanza closes another door: life, death, even paradise. Dickinson sets broken porcelain, frost and the gaze of Jesus against an unbearable devotion. The speaker and her beloved remain separated by oceans and prayer, left with only a pale sust...

"With a Flower" is a short poem in which a speaker hides inside a bloom, hoping to be worn close to a loved one's heart. In two quiet stanzas, a secret presence rests on a breast, then lingers in a vase as the petals fade. The beloved remains unsuspecting, yet feels a faint ache of loneliness. Tender and sly, the poem turns a simple gift into a whispered confession. Become a supporter of this podc...

In "If you were coming in the fall," Emily Dickinson turns the ache of waiting into a poem of five quiet stanzas. A speaker imagines brushing summer aside like a housewife shooing a fly, winding months into balls of thread, and counting centuries on her fingers. Each promise of patience grows more extravagant, until uncertainty undoes her calm. The poem balances playful domestic images against dee...

In "Surrender," Emily Dickinson gives voice to a woman who has already offered everything to her beloved and still hears his doubt. She pleads with him to believe her, insisting that even God would be content with a fraction of such love. Tender, urgent and quietly daring, this short poem asks what remains to give when the whole self is already his, and what a humble maiden may still hope for. Bec...

Suspense by Emily Dickinson is a short poem that turns the nearest room into a place of high stakes. Across two compact stanzas, a waiting soul listens for an approaching footstep and the opening of a door, unsure whether a friend will bring happiness or doom. Its mood is hushed and tense, and every small sound feels enormous. The poem asks how much the heart can bear while it waits, and it leaves...

"Mine" is a short poem by Emily Dickinson in which a speaker declares possession with escalating, almost defiant force. Each line stakes a claim through images of royal seals, white elections and scarlet prison bars, as if love were a legal charter. The mood is feverish and triumphant, and the stakes are nothing less than whether devotion can survive the grave and the slow theft of the ages. In ju...