Journal 28

"I heard a Fly buzz- when I died" is a very strange poem. The speaker is talking about what happened after he/she died. This fact and point of view gives a new and different way of reading the poem. Dickinson writes, "I heard a fly buzz-when I died" so it makes the reader think more about what Dickinson was talking about. You never get to hear what death is like from the point of view of the dying person. Then Dickinson writes, "The stillness was around my form Was like the stillness in the air Between the heaves of storm." This gives the image that when she died it was calm except for the occasional sobs from grieving friends and family. "The eyes beside had wrung them dry" shows that the people who were crying, but when it says that they were wrung dry it means that they had finished crying. Then she writes, "And breaths were gathering sure" I believe that it means that the person that was dying was gathering his or her's last breaths. He or she knows that the end is drawing near. "For one last onset, when the King Be witnessed in his power." I am not sure what this is saying, but it could mean that the "King" is calling the dying person home or to heaven. "I willed my keepsakes, signed away, What portion of me I, Could make assignable,—and then, There interposed a fly,". This part of the poem shows that she is giving up all of her material possessions, and was ready to die. "With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz, Between the light and me; And then the windows failed, and then I could not see to see." These lines are showing that the person was ready to die and was going to have a peaceful death, but then he or she was interrupted by the fly. The person died anyways. Even though she was interrupted by the fly he died anyways and it didn't matter because now he or she is dead.