Song Description

Emily's Ribbons--Emily Dickinson bound her poems together with ribbon for posterity when she once recognized that in her life they would go unnoticed. A final act of tying together the loose ends of a well-intended life before rest.

Lyrics

Grave digger, from the day I was born
Sod tiller, planting rows of hopes forlorn
Trying to figure, how to bury, and not mourn
Life's hair trigger, and its promises forsworn.

I've dug too many graves
And seen too many hopes killed
Watched them lowered one by one--
Shoveled their fates sealed,
And never enough dirt left
For the hole they once filled.

The terrible tom toms--
The clods as they dance,
The meekness of the body
Did it ever have a chance?
How brave were its dreams
And how treasonous my plans.

To hide from the world's leers
A form once so chaste,
Carefully, I cover the corpse
So to leave no trace,
But how tenderly can you shovel
Mud into a precious face?

EMILY'S RIBBONS

I'm tying Emily's ribbons ,
To keep the pages safe but hidden
No one to read a lifetime written
We're reconciled no one will listen,
Go self-confessed but unshriven,
The ablution of the unforgiven.
I'm tying Emily's ribbons

I'm tying Emily's ribbons
Bewildered, but still I've striven
to do the penance I've been given
I'm tying Emily's ribbons