#312: A Slant of Light

From Heavenly Hurt to Heavenly Hope

Light is fleeting. As the earth moves round the sun, the sun moves along the wall. By the laws of physics, we are the ones who are moving; but by our own eyes, it is the sun that moves to create its slanting existence.

“There’s a certain slant of light”

writes Emily Dickinson. But this particular slant of light does not

“oppress, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes”.

I stand and stare at this light, into this light, lapping it up in my eyes and my mind as I savour every moment. Because light has a temporal quality to its existence, an existence which cannot be held or weighed or caught in any simple way — but it can be felt. I can move into a certain slant of light and bathe in its rays, feel the warmth upon my skin. I can feel it, see it, photograph it, but capture it I cannot. And soon—too soon— it has moved from the wall, onto the floor, and out of my home altogether.

I remember, in my high school science class, being told that every thing in the world is either a solid, a liquid, or a gas. I wanted to ask: which one is light? Only now, when I look it up, do I learn that light is none of these, for it is energy, not matter. So I think now, poetically, of the energy of light that I feel on my skin as I sit in the sun. I think of how appropriate it is that I gain emotional, mental energy from each certain slant of light that I catch in my uncertain life. And I think in opposing terms to Emily Dickinson’s slant of light with its

“Heavenly Hurt”

seeing instead a

Heavenly Hope

in my certain slant of light.

Yet I feel at one with Emily Dickinson’s parting words in the poem, as she describes how

“When it comes, the Landscape listens—
Shadows—hold their breath—”

When Emily Dickinson saw that certain slant of light, on a winter afternoon, she was reminded of what shadows are to come. When I saw this certain slant of light I felt, saw, and existed in only that present slanting moment. But as it passed, Dickinson’s alternate view was on my mind.

The temporal quality of light, like life, remains, though that certain slant of light has passed. So now I leave you with another of her light-focussed, time-concerned poems:

By a departing light
We see acuter, quite,
Than by a wick that stays.
There’s something in the flight
That clarifies the light
And decks the rays.

Katie writes regularly about random objects that she finds in her everyday life. If you’re interested in reading more, check out her blog Object, a collaboration with fellow Medium blogger Eleanor. You can also follow us on Twitter @ ObjectBlog.