Prairie on My Mind

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.

~~Emily Dickinson (1755)


When I was in high school, I found this poem on stationery, I think, or a little calendar illustration. I kept it, took it to college with me, posted it where I could see it---along with other favorite quotations and visuals all over my walls. It's probably still somewhere in a safe place, this little scrap of paper, unless my children have tossed it out in a cleaning frenzy... What's better is that it stays in my memory. I was able to bring it out today in class and recite it, word for word. The simplicity of it has endowed our real meadow with magic. When I look at the meadow, I see so many beloved faces who have roamed there, lain in the tall grasses, watched clouds or stars in the canopy overhead, celebrated, explored, played, or just gazed. Revery. Even without the meadow, it remains available.