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Dickinson, Emily - The bone that has no marrow What ultimate for that
Identifier
000097
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
The last verse needs an explanation……………
Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin. He appears three times in the Gospel: the first is when he visits Jesus one night to listen to his teachings (John 3:1-21); the second is when he states the law concerning the arrest of Jesus during the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7:45-51); and the last follows the Crucifixion, when he assists Joseph of Arimathea in preparing the corpse of Jesus for burial (John 19:39-42). The phantom is Jesus, as shown by the text below.
The Gospel of Nicodemus
On the day of the Preparation, about the tenth hour, you shut me in, and I remained there the whole Sabbath in full. And when midnight came, as I was standing and praying, the house where you shut me in was hung up by the four corners, and there was a flashing of light in mine eyes. And I fell to the ground trembling. Then some one lifted me up from the place where I had fallen, and poured over me an abundance of water from the head even to the feet, and put round my nostrils the odour of a wonderful ointment, and rubbed my face with the water itself, as if washing me, and kissed me, and said to me, Joseph, fear not; but open thine eyes, and see who it is that speaks to thee. And looking, I saw Jesus; and being terrified, I thought it was a phantom
A description of the experience
The bone that has no marrow
What ultimate for that?
It is not fit for table
For beggar or for cat
A bone has obligations
A being has the same
A marrowless assembly
Is culpabler than shame
But how shall finished creatures
A function fresh obtain?
Old Nicodemus’s phantom
Confronting us again
The source of the experience
Dickinson, EmilyConcepts, symbols and science items
Symbols
BonesScience Items
Activities and commonsteps
Activities
Overloads
GriefLead poisoning
Suppressions
Communing with natureInherited genes
Reducing threats
Commonsteps
References
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson