those ordinary, domestic, and personal actions of the body as a dutiful surface overlaying a mystery: a time, "some way back," when life delivered an unspecified blow so severe that existence stopped. That great loss has left a great, invisible hollow. Despite the absolute emptiness--or because of it, she says--daily actions are performed "precisely" and with "scrupulous exactness" by one who keeps on living after life actually has closed. (Dickinson's poem No. 1732 begins "My life closed twice before its close.")
from Robert Pinsky: Slate: The mystery of the unspoken in Emily Dickinson's "I tie my Hat--I crease my Shawl"
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