Emily Dickinson, "I worked for chaff and earning Wheat" (J 1269)

Dickinson says she "worked for chaff and earning Wheat / Was haughty and betrayed," and we've got to stop and think a moment. Worked for chaff? Worked for the dictionary definition of worthless? She felt "betrayed" because actual wheat grew?

Yes to all these questions. Dickinson wanted chaff, wanted what was worthless. She ends the first stanza cursing the earth in a manner reminiscent of The Simpsons' headline "Old Man Yells at Cloud." "What right had Fields to arbitrate / In matters ratified?"

What right of fields, indeed. The question for us is our devotion to the worthless. When are we furious that we didn't get what we want, when what we wanted was a waste of time or worse? When are we convinced that trash is the only treasure and blind ourselves to the good?

I worked for chaff and earning Wheat (J 1269)
Emily Dickinson
  
I worked for chaff and earning Wheat
Was haughty and betrayed.
What right had Fields to arbitrate
In matters ratified?

I tasted Wheat and hated Chaff
And thanked the ample friend —
Wisdom is more becoming viewed
At distance than at hand.

I work in education so more tragic examples of terrible taste linger over my thoughts. There really are people who refuse to see what is obviously good for themselves and others. It will take them time to realize what's at stake, and that is a loss to everyone around them. Anger at a lack of knowledge or at being challenged is a huge missed opportunity. You see the students who know they can make some good of a situation and you see what a blessing they are to so many.

But I know we can talk about our desire for chaff with less moralistic tones. A lot of people devote years of paychecks to the fanciest car as opposed to the most reliable. I understand this–we're in our cars and trucks a lot!–but a $1000 a month is a place to live. We'll go for the cheap and fast treat, too. Hershey's instead of Lindt; Breyer's instead of Turkey Hill. And I'm sure some of you have stories of dating, romance, and relationships to share here. If we get what is actually nice, it feels like an affront. We've been betraying ourselves the whole time, as we could have had better, but to hear that feels like a slap in the face.

In Dickinson's poem there hides another question: How do we change our mind and learn to distinguish the chaff from the Wheat? Scripture makes this distinction through obedience, but Dickinson tells us the "Fields" were her teacher. What right did they have to intervene?

We could imagine "Fields" as mere chance. The problem, in that case, is entirely in her desire to control. "Fields" are just any random thing that spoils a plan. However, this underestimates the elaborate combination of the earth, soil, climate, and planning which comprise "Fields." It's still a critique of control–you thought you could manage all that perfectly, even for chaff?–but it points to the peculiar power of nature. Nature entails growth, and growth is not strictly a product of planning.

The fields taught her, but how exactly? I see how I would draw the lesson, e.g. that I might begin to understand the complexity of what I truly wanted. Dickinson, however, tells us "I tasted Wheat and hated Chaff / And thanked the ample friend." And I'm not sure that taste is enough to learn what is good in our world! Plenty of people turn against food they actually like because the clique they're hanging with, or the influencer they're watching, or the platform they're on 24/7 told them it is bad. I don't know that the sense of taste alone reveals the truth in Dickinson's world, either. Before you change, you need to be open to change. I guess this is me as educator speaking again. I've been in situations where I absolutely know the student needs what I'm teaching but there's no way they're going to pay attention to me.

The poem ends by telling us "Wisdom is more becoming viewed / At distance than at hand." I'm not skeptical of this qualified moral. It is a classical if not Christian idea of wisdom. Sight is the prized sense, since it does not possess but apprehends at a distance. It stands for the approach of knowledge itself. And I think the word "distance" in her last line is linked directly to the breadth and complexity of the fields. Taste, on my reading, is the confirmation of what is good, a necessary but not sufficient condition for a realization that something else is bad. Her true teacher is nature, not in a limited sense of "human nature," but in that of an ever-increasing awareness of what makes the world work.