Make Your Bed

 

Ample make this Bed -

Make this Bed with Awe -

In it wait till Judgment break

Excellent and Fair.

Be it Mattress straight -

Be it Pillow round -

Let no Sunrise’ yellow noise

Interrupt this Ground - 

Emily Dickinson # 289

In David Preest’s website http://www.emilydickinsonpoems.org/ he said, “Emily herself titled a copy of this poem ‘Country Burial.’ The mourners are to make the spacious bed of this grave ‘with Awe,’ because in it the dead man awaits the day of Judgment.”  This description of the poem made me see it completely differently than what I was thinking when I first read it.

I couldn’t help but gravitate to this poem, seeing that I now make multiple beds on a daily basis.  I make beds as part of my profession and take great pride in a good crease. To me a well-made bed stood for good discipline, like a soldier making the perfect bed, and because of that good discipline, you will be judged “Excellent and Fair.”

The thing is, usually it's the unmade beds that show, this person is LIVING life.  They are embracing the “Sunrise’ yellow noise”.  Waking up late because you went to bed late. You're not going to think about making your bed, you're going to think about what a good time you had the previous night. And how shitty you feel, so let’s go back to bed “Pillow round-” and “Mattress straight -”

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