Higginson,

instead of the seer he should have been,
was,
for her,
mere tradesmen,
buyer and seller of slate and shale
for the rooftops of New England.

So, when his moment arrived,
he did not recognize
that diamond in the dirt.

Blinded by unbending hubris,
he missed his life-time chance
to see the profusion
of sparkling verses she offered,

standing like a supplicant at Mass,
her diminutive body
shrouded in bridal white,
shaded in the shadows
of her Amherst entry way,
that wooden box,
holding her hearts fire
to ignite his world
clutched in pale hands,

a new poetry
capturing a universe
to stun his soul.

Instead of embracing her,
that brightest poet-light of his time,
he chided her for her meter,
sought to subdue the strangeness of her rhymes.

Who remembers him now?

Coffined in his shame.
Buried by her fame.
His archaic dictums
drowned
in the loud lauding
of her name!

“Dickinson!!!”