From Us She Wandered Now a Year

From Us She Wandered Now a Year - meaning Summary

Absence Kept as Mystery

The poem addresses a prolonged absence — likely a loved one who has been gone for a year — without specifying cause. Dickinson presents the loss as an unresolved mystery: the speaker does not know whether the missing person is lost in literal wilderness or a metaphysical "Ethereal Zone." The community has no eyewitness account, so they mark time rather than attainment of closure. The final lines emphasize collective ignorance and the human tendency to measure disappearance by calendar time, accepting uncertainty while ritualizing remembrance.