Outside Reading 3

Sarah Robertson

Emily Dickinson is another poet who talks of nature in her poems. In her poem "A Light Exists in Spring", Emily says that this light/ray only exists in spring and only nature can understand the light. From this light nature communicated with you, but once the light is gone you feel an emptiness, and there is some sudden sacred change. I think that this poem relates to chora and topos. Through chora Emily describes a force that only nature can feel, there is this energy that nature brings that brings happiness; but once it is gone then there is a feeling of emptiness. This also relates to the trial/hiking because hikers say that while they are on the trail they feel complete and whole but once whey are back to civilization they feel an emptiness inside and a yearning to go back to nature. Topos is expressed in this poem because the light is measurable; it may only be there during the spring but it is measurable. Through Emily's poem you can read that she can see the light of spring come, feels its energy, but then feel the emptiness of it being gone.