Ririro.com - Poetry

"A narrow Fellow in the Grass" is a short poem that follows a barefoot boy through summer fields, where something slips through the grass like a parted comb. He mistakes a spotted shape for a whip lash drying in the sun, until it wrinkles and vanishes the moment he stoops to grab it. The speaker feels at ease with nature's creatures, yet this one brings a tightened breath and a shiver that settles...

"A Cap of Lead Across the Sky" is a short poem that turns an oncoming thunderstorm into something close to dread. A heavy, leaden lid of cloud presses down, and the watchers below search in vain for the sun's mighty face. A chill rises as though from a mineshaft, and noon sinks into a dark well. In just eight lines, the storm becomes a strange meeting of winter's cold and hell's menace. Become a s...

"A Burdock—clawed my Gown" is a short poem in which a snagged dress becomes a lesson in blame. The speaker admits she wandered too near the Burdock's den, then turns to a bog that spoils her shoe and the splashing walkers it was made to catch. Dickinson's dry humor builds toward minnows, who despise easily, and the calm-eyed Elephant, who looks further on. Become a supporter of this podcast: https...

"A Bee his burnished Carriage" is a short poem that stages a bee's arrival at a rose as a grand, golden-wheeled visit. The bee drives boldly in, and the rose receives him with frank tranquillity, holding nothing back from his greedy appetite. In just a few lines, Emily Dickinson turns a garden moment into a quiet drama of appetite, surrender and aftermath, ending on the very different things each...

"Real" is a short poem by Emily Dickinson that looks hard at the face of suffering and asks what cannot be faked. The speaker admires a look of agony precisely because it is true, since no one can counterfeit convulsion or mimic a throe. In just two stanzas, a single gaze and beads of sweat on a forehead become proof of genuine pain, and the poem leaves the reader with a chilling, quiet certainty....

"The Hemlock" is a short poem by Emily Dickinson that turns a single evergreen into a portrait of stubborn endurance. The speaker pictures the tree standing at the edge of the snow, feeding on the gnash of northern winds and savoring cold the way others savor wine. Frost, bareness and austerity become sources of strength rather than hardship. Dickinson sets the hemlock's bleak, wild landscape agai...

Beclouded is a short poem by Emily Dickinson that captures a gloomy winter sky in just eight lines. A single travelling snowflake hesitates over a barn and a rut, unsure whether to fall, while a narrow wind grumbles about being wronged. Dickinson gives the weather a petty, human mood, then turns the scene into a quiet reflection on how even Nature can be caught unprepared and stripped of her finer...

Psalm of the Day is a short poem in which a speaker follows a mysterious "something" through a summer's morning, noon and night. The feeling is hushed and radiant: an azure depth, a wordless tune, a brightness so startling the speaker claps and then veils her face for fear it will flutter away. Flowers, bees and a wintry creature stirred by a tropic hint echo the quiet wonder of unexpected grace....

"A little road not made of man" is a short Emily Dickinson poem that invites you down a path no wheel or foot can travel. Only the eye can follow it, while a bee and a butterfly pass along it with ease. The speaker gazes toward a town she cannot name and admits she can only sigh, since no vehicle will carry her there. Quiet, wistful and brief, it lingers on longing and the unreachable. Become a su...

In "The Grass," a short poem to read online, Emily Dickinson looks at a green meadow with playful envy. The grass has little to do but host butterflies, entertain bees, sway to the breeze and wear dew like pearls. Her speaker drifts through a gentle, sunlit mood, watching even the grass's fragrant afterlife in the barn as hay. The central tension is a quiet longing: what would it feel like to be s...

Summer's Armies is a short Emily Dickinson poem that turns the arrival of warm weather into a shimmering military parade. Dreamy butterflies stir, sleepy pools hum an old tune, and baronial bees march out in murmuring platoons. Robins crowd fences like snowflakes, while an orchid greets her old love, the Sun. The speaker watches a leaderless regiment of woods and hills and wonders whose multitudes...

The Pedigree of Honey is a four-line poem that turns a bee's simple errand into a quiet lesson in perspective. While the world fusses over lineage and rank, the bee cares only for the clover in front of him, and in his eyes that humble blossom is as grand as any noble house. With playful wit and a few exact words, Dickinson sets honey, flowers and status side by side and asks what truly makes some...

"New feet within my garden go" is a short poem by Emily Dickinson that watches spring return to a quiet garden. Fresh footsteps and stirring fingers disturb the soil, and a troubadour singing from the elm breaks the speaker's solitude. Children play on the green while the weary sleep beneath it. Through two brief stanzas, the poem sets the bright arrival of new life beside the steady turning of th...

Apotheosis is a short Emily Dickinson poem that opens with a hushed invitation: "Come slowly, Eden!" A bashful speaker, lips unused to such sweetness, sips jasmine like a fainting bee arriving late at its flower. Over eight compact lines, the bee hums around a chamber, counts its nectars, and enters. The poem lingers on hesitation, longing and surrender, and rewards slow, attentive reading with se...

The Outlet is a short poem by Emily Dickinson in which a river speaks directly to the sea, begging to be welcomed. Across four tiny stanzas, the river's voice moves from hopeful question to anxious waiting to bold bargaining, offering brooks gathered from hidden, spotted nooks as a gift. It is a quiet piece about longing, devotion and the nervous hope of belonging, ending on a single plea that lin...

Transplanted by Emily Dickinson is a short poem that follows a small Arctic flower as it wanders down the latitudes, away from the polar hem. Puzzled, it arrives at continents of summer, skies full of sun, and bright crowds of flowers beside birds that speak in foreign tongues. The poem lingers on the wonder and bewilderment of a stranger in a lush new world, then ends on a quietly teasing note ab...

"Alter? When the hills do" is a short poem by Emily Dickinson that answers a lover's doubt with a vow of constancy. The speaker measures her devotion against hills, the sun and the daffodil, asking when such steady things ever change. In just two stanzas, the poem sets quiet certainty against the fear of fading love. Read it online and notice how nature becomes the speaker's proof of loyalty. Beco...

"I taste a liquor never brewed" is a short poem by Emily Dickinson in which a speaker gets drunk on nature itself. Dew, air and endless summer days replace wine, while bees and butterflies stumble from flower to flower. The mood is giddy and playful, and the speaker refuses to stop even when the others give up. Heaven eventually leans out to watch the tiny, reeling tippler. It is a vivid, funny pi...

In "I never lost as much but twice," Emily Dickinson turns personal loss into a startling, compact confession. A speaker twice stands as a beggar before the door of God, emptied by grief, then twice finds her store restored by descending angels. Yet the final lines carry a sharp, wry sorrow, as she names burglar, banker, and father in one breath. Brief, dense, and quietly defiant, this poem reward...

"I shall know why, when time is over" is a short poem by Emily Dickinson that turns a private ache into a vision of heavenly instruction. The speaker imagines Christ explaining every separate anguish in a "fair schoolroom of the sky," where long-held questions finally fall quiet. Then comes a startling shift: awe at his suffering may dissolve the pain that scalds now. Two brief stanzas hold doubt,...

Death is a dialogue between the spirit and the dust in this compact Emily Dickinson poem, staged as a quiet argument. Death commands the spirit to dissolve, but the spirit politely declines, claiming another trust to keep. Death doubts and presses its case from the ground, while the spirit turns away and sheds only an overcoat of clay. In just two stanzas, mortality becomes a conversation with sha...

"I reason, earth is short" is a compact Emily Dickinson poem that tests the comfort of logic against the weight of mortality. Across three brief stanzas, the speaker calmly lists life's brevity, absolute anguish, inevitable decay and the hope of a heavenly balance. Each argument ends with the same unsettling refrain, "But what of that?" The repeated question leaves the speaker's certainty tremblin...

In "The Funeral," Emily Dickinson turns a sharp, sardonic eye on the bustle that surrounds a death. This short poem describes the brief stir each of us can cause only once, the illustrious commotion, and the éclat of the occasion. Her speaker calls it an unknown renown that even a beggar would refuse if he could. Dickinson blends dry wit with unease, leaving readers to weigh what honor and ceremon...

Two Worlds is a short poem that sets the steady rhythm of nature beside the weight of human suffering. Emily Dickinson watches mornings bloom into noon, wildflowers kindle in the woods, and brooks chatter on, while a blackbird sings past Calvary. Then a bee grieves for its lost rose as if nothing larger exists. The poem asks what sorrow really measures, and who decides what matters. Become a suppo...

"So bashful when I spied her" is a short Emily Dickinson poem that follows a speaker who discovers a shy, blushing creature hidden among her leaflets. Tension builds as the speaker, breathless and helpless, carries her away from her simple haunts. Playful and coy, the poem hints at a stolen treasure from the dingle and the dell, and ends with a teasing refusal to name the one it was all done for....