Emily Dickinson's "XLI. The Forgotten Grave"?

Question

First here is the poem:

After a hundred years

Nobody knows the place, --

Agony, that enacted there,

Motionless as peace.

Weeds triumphant ranged,

Strangers strolled and spelled

At the lone orthography

Of the elder dead.

Winds of summer fields

Recollect the way, --

Instinct picking up the key

Dropped by memory.

Second, the question. What is she talking about? I get the literal meaning but what is the rest. The winds of summer fields have to represent something. Why else would they be recollecting the way to a grave...

Answer 1

I think this poem is more of a fully literal one for her.  Only the winds know the true location of the place. It gives it quite a desolate feeling, as intended. Sounds like a battlefield location with no markers.

This is the last place I would have expected to see someone mention Emily Dickinson :-) I like her very much.