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An immersive reading of Emily Dickinson’s poem ‘My First Well Day Since Many Ill’ about a person going outside after being sick for a long time with an exploration of the themes of summer’s end, the denial of death, and reclusiveness. 

Poem:

My First Well Day Since Many Ill
            by Emily Dickinson

My first well Day — since many ill —
 I asked to go abroad,
 And take the Sunshine in my hands,
 And see the things in Pod —
 
 A 'blossom just when I went in
 To take my Chance with pain —
 Uncertain if myself, or He,
 Should prove the strongest One.
 
 The Summer deepened, while we strove —
 She put some flowers away —
 And Redder cheeked Ones — in their stead —
 A fond — illusive way —
 
 To cheat Herself, it seemed she tried —
 As if before a child
 To fade — Tomorrow — Rainbows held
 The Sepulchre, could hide.
 
 She dealt a fashion to the Nut —
 She tied the Hoods to Seeds —
 She dropped bright scraps of Tint, about —
 And left Brazilian Threads
 
 On every shoulder that she met —
 Then both her Hands of Haze
 Put up — to hide her parting Grace
 From our unfitted eyes.
 
 My loss, by sickness — Was it Loss?
 Or that Ethereal Gain
 One earns by measuring the Grave —
 Then — measuring the Sun —

References:

Hirschhorn, Norbert. “Was it Tuberculosis? Another Glimpse of Emily Dickinson’s Health.” The New England Quarterly (March 1999). 102-118.

Blanchard DL. Emily Dickinson's Ophthalmic Consultation With Henry Willard Williams, MD. Arch Ophthalmol. 2012;130(12):1591–1595.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/emily-dickinson