Paradiso

My wheel is in the dark!
I cannot see a spoke
Yet I know its dripping feet
Go round and round.

My foot is on the Tide!
An unfrequented road –
Yet have all roads
A clearing at the end –

Some have resigned the Loom –
Some in the busy tomb
Find quaint employ –

Some with new – stately feet –
Pass royal through the gate –
Flinging the problem back
At you and I!

Like many of Dickinson’s poems, rereading is an endless process. With each reading a new perspective will emerge, a new scenery illuminated. ‘My wheel is in the dark!‘ is no different. It is one of Dickinson’s earlier poems and it is packed with ambiguous, dark, ironic and profound metaphors.

The Wheel
The wheel is Dickinson’s rather apparent metaphor for one’s life. In this poem the wheel is what we find on a paddle boat, hence the dripping feet that goes round and round. It is our lives that goes on and on in a circular fashion, yet it is unseen. It is something we overlook, despite our ‘knowing‘ or self-awareness of its dripping feet. We are in a strange sense bound to be confused. We do not see its spokes, nor do we ever quite grasp the entirety of the wheel as half of it will always (metaphorically as well as literally speaking) be submerged under water.

The Road
Dickinson will often refer to life as a ‘road’. One sees this in One Sister have I in our house (P14 Thomas H. Johnson) in which Dickinson refers to her biological sister as: ‘One came the road that I came’. Meaning both came into life by the same mother. Or later in The Road to Paradise is plain (P1491 Thomas H. Johnson) in which the road, that is to say our lives, is one that is described as ‘dimpled’ and ‘holds scarce one‘. In My wheel is in the dark! the road is unfrequented and it has a clearing at the end. It is a somewhat simple analogy, yet as usual with Dickinson it’s a complex and peculiar one.

Tide, clarity, faith
My foot is on the tide! can have several meanings: (I) the speaker is on the paddle boat and is therefore in a somewhat “safe distance” from the tides, hence the speaker is in control of the turbulent waves he/she is facing (however strong). Or (II) the speaker’s foot is literally on the tide, meaning this road that is unfrequented, individual and for each of us to fully experience. Adversities are like tides, constantly coming and going in waves, but we shall not fear as there is a clearing at the end. Meaning we must have faith. It is once again a peculiar wordplay: (I) is clearing meant as clarity? I.e. with each adversity, both small and great, and life as a whole, we will at some point, the further we trod this rocky road experience clarity? Or is it (II): there is a clearing at the end, meaning death who is waiting at the end of the road, just as inescapable as the tides on which we have our feet.

Like most of Dickinson’s poems, the answer lies somewhere in the middle, or rather in each of the two interpretations.

Loom
The speaker is telling us that many before us have already trodden the road we are currently “walking” or “journeying”; and they have long-ago reached the end. They have in other words departed from life. There is once again talk of a double meaning. On the one hand, some have resigned the Loom – some in the busy tomb can suggest that there are people who have quite literally resigned, i.e: given up on life. However, this seems to contradict the next line(s), as those who have died, which is a rather optimistic statement: find quaint employ — meaning the soul, on the metaphorical-Dickinsonian “other side” in the busy tomb, is still somehow active, engaged, occupied.

In a later poem, we find Dickinson portrait this rather starkly (albeit differently) in I Died For Beauty (P449 Thomas H. Johnson) in which the narrator put forth the idea of two dead people speaking/communicating from grave to grave, hence the recurring metaphor of the busy tomb.

The Gate
Some souls however, will with stately feet, pass royal through the gate. In this fourth and final stanza Dickinson tells us that there some souls, with new stately feet who will cross through the gate to the afterlife. These are the people who (hence Dickinson completes the circle) have achieved the aforementioned clarity. They will pass royally through the gate on their stately feet. It is a striking and profound metaphor.

And ending the poem in the fashion of Dickinsonian irony, Dickinson tells us that these souls however, who have crossed through the gate, do not illuminate nor shed light on this achieved clarity. On the contrary, they are:

Flinging the problem back
At you and I!

It is an ominous and rather ironic ending. We are left with a circular poem in which we are now back to the beginning of unknowing. The clarity has been illuminated but as to how we achieve it we know little. We can only see fractions of the truth Dickinson is espousing, fractions as our wheel is in the dark. It is the kind of ending that has the reader feel both an unnerving sense of mortality, morbid curiosity, and (for me at least) a strong urge to pick up Whitman’s Song of Myself to get a glimpse into the spokes that are hidden.

(Linked here is see the previous issue of dissecting Dickinson’s: The guest is gold and crimson).