Monday, April 24, 2023

“A certain slant of light” on this spring morning

On clear winter days in Basel, the opening lines of an Emily Dickinson poem often cross my mind: "There's a certain Slant of light, / Winter Afternoons" (Fr320). As I walk down the street in Basel at 47°33'N and find myself blinded by the "Slant" of light from winter's late afternoon sun, I imagine Emily looking out her window in Amherst at 42°23'N and experiencing the same (though perhaps with slightly less "Slant" in her case?). By April, I usually no longer experience that same sense of "Slant", but this morning, for a moment, sunlight came slanting through the clouds into our second-story living room, and Dickinson crossed my mind again. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 24 April 2023)

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